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MuurJji* sub., $s. 0(1. Kntered as seoond-clasa matter at the Post (Jfllce, Chicag'u. 



Into Morocco 




By Pierre Lot 



0, MCNALLY A. CO.. PUBLISHERS, 
CHICAGO AND NEW YORK. 



^^■^ 



.^ ^Ci 



INTO MOROCCO 



V '^ 



a> v>. 



'y- V- 



Into Morocco 



PIERRE LOTI, .^' . \\ . X 



AUTHOR OF "the ROMANCE OF A SPAHI," "THE ROMANCE 
OF A CHILD," ETC. 



TRANSLATED BY 



E. P. ROBINS 



ILLUSTRATED BY 



BENJ. CONSTANT AND AIME MAROT 




chicago and new yo^ 

Rand, McNally & Company, Publishers. 

1892. 



o*^ 



Copyright, 1892, by Rand, McNally & Co. 



4^^ 



This Book is dedicated to 

Monsieur J. Patenotre 

French Minister to Morocco 
With the grateful and affectionate respects of 
THE AUTHOR, 



^^~' 



.0 ^- 



O V- 









P R E F A C E. 



JyTT' HAT 1 have to say requires a few 
words of preface, for which I may be 
pardoned, as it is my first offence in that line. 

I wish to say a few words of warning to the 
large number of people for whom my book was ?iot 
written. No one need expect to fi?id in it disserta- 
tio7is on the political condition of Morocco, on its 
future, or on what is to be done to bring it into 
harmony with the 7nodern movement j in the first 
place, these considerations have no interest for me, 
and then, what is more important, my reflections, to 
what small extent they have been carried, are di- 
rectly opposed to co77imon sense. 

Circumstances gave me a close insight into the 
government of the country, a7id its court a7id har- 
e7ns, but I have been careful not to make 77iy re- 
flectio7is public {while approvi7ig of everything in 
my inner consciousness^, for fear of the brawlings 
that fnight arise among the witless. If the Mo- 
roccans, who received me so kindly, shall chance to 



Into Morocco. 



'"oc- 






rpad i?ie, I trust that they will appreciate 7ny dis- 
creet reserve. 

Agai?i, in these naked descriptions to which I 
have determined to limit myself, I am gravely sus- 
pected of partiality for this land of I slain, /, who 
through some inexplicable freak of heredity or of 
far remote pre-existence, have always felt myself 
half Arab at heart. The sound of the little 
African flutes, of the tam-tams and the iron cas- 
tanets, awakens in me unfathoifiable monoiHes, and 
char 7ns me more than the most scientific harmony ; 
the most trifling arabesque design over some an- 
cient gateway that time and iveather have almost 
obliterated — nay, even the simple whitewash, lying 
like a shroud on some old rinned wall — lull me in- 
to dreams of the mysterious past, and cause to vi- 
brate within 7ne I know 7iot what hidde7i chord. 
Often at 7iight, while lyi7ig in 77iy te7it, I have lis ■ 
tened, absolutely carried away and thrilled through 
eve7-y fibre of my bei7ig, when so7ne 07ie of our 
ca7nel-drivers cha7iced to strike upon his guitar a 
few 7iotes that fell icpon 77iy ear, shrill aiid plain- 
tive, like the tinkliiig of falling drops .of water. 

It is t7'ue that it is not ve7y cheeiful, this em- 
pire of the Moghreb, a7id I must ad77iit heads fall 
there occasionally ; still, as far as I a7n concerned, 
I have 77iet only witJi hospitality there. The people 
77iay be rather iinpenetrable, but they are S77iili7ig 



Preface. 7 

and courteous^ even the common class. And when- 
ever I in turn endeavored to say somethmg fiice^ I 
received my thaftks for it by that pretty Arab gest- 
ure^ which c insists in laying the hand on the heart 
and bowings with a s?nile which discloses rows of 
pearly teeth. 

As to his majesty^ the Sultan^ I am glad that he 
is handsome j that he ivill have fieither press nor 
parliament., roads nor railroads in his dominions j 
that he rides splendid horses., and that he made me 
a present of a long, silver-mounted musket and a 
great sword inlaid with gold. I admire the lofty, 
serefie, disdainfid way he has in looking at outside 
contemporary agitations j I agree with him in 
thinking that the faith of our fore-fathers, from 
which still spring martyrs and prophets, is a good 
thing to cling to, and a sweet consolation to man in 
his last moments. What boots it to take such 
pains to overturn everything, to understand and 
embrace so many innovations., since we must die; 
sifice some day, in sunlight or in shade, when, God 
alone can tell, we must give tp the ghost ? Nay, 
let us rather hold to the traditions of our fathers, 
which, by uniting us 7nore closely with • the genera- 
tions that are gone and those that are to co7?ie, 
seem to lengthen out our own days. Let us live in 
a vague dream of eternity, careless of what earth 
has in store for us to-morrozu j let us suffer our 



Into Morocco, 



walls to crumble away beneath our burning sum- 
mer sun, let us suffer the grass to grow on our 
roofs, our cattle to rot where they fall. Regard- 
less of all beside, let us grasp as they pass those 
thi?igs which do not deceive : beauHful women, fine 
horses, magfiificent gardens and the perfume of 
flowers. 

Let those alone, then, accompany me in my trav- 
els who have soi?ieti7ne at evening felt a thrill 
pass through them at the first phmitive notes of the 
little Arab flutes accompa7iying the drums. They 
are my comrades, they who have experienced that, 
my co77irades and my brothers ; let them mount 
with me 7ny broad-chested brown horse with flyi7ig 
77iane a7id tail, and I will be their guide over plains 
carpeted with flowers, across solita7y deserts of iris 
and daffodils j I ivill conduct the77i U7ider the flerce 
SU71 to the very depths of this i77ime7norial country, 
and will show the7n the dead cities there, whose re- 
quie77i is the 77iur77iur of unceasing prayers. 

As for others, let them spare the77iselves the 
trouble of coni77ie7ici7ig to read 77ie j they would not 
tmderstand, and my so7ig would appear to the77i 
77ionotonous and C07ifused, the outco7ne of an e7npty 
drea77i. 

F. LOT J, 



PREFACE BY THE TRANSLATOR. 



L. M. J. Viand, known to the reading world 
under his nom de plu7ne of ^' Pierre Loti," was born, 
in 1850, at Rochelle. The example of an elder 
brother see7ns to have strengthened the boy's inher- 
ent disposition toward a life of travel and adventure, 
and, at an early age, he entered the French navy, 
in which he now holds a rank correspondijig to that 
of captain among us. He was thus afforded oppor- 
tunities of visiting ?nany places out of the beaten 
track, and the result has been the delightful vol- 
umes of iinpressions that have given him his well- 
deserved reputation. His recent contest with Zola, 
for a place ajnongthe ^'-Immortals " of the French 
Academy, in which he scored a victory over the 
great novelist, is still fresh in the memory of all. 

In 1889, the French government, finding that 
there were some old scores with the Sultan of 
Morocco that needed settling, determined to send an 
embassy to that potentate. M. Patenotre {the same 
who is to succeed M. Roustan in the French lega- 
tion at Washington) was intrusted with the mis- 
sion, and invited Loti to make one of his suite. 
Had it been a question of visiting any civilized 
(9) 



x^" 






lO 



Preface by the Translator. 



coimtry^ the writer woidd have spurned the offer ; 
but Morocco^ the land of darkness and mystery^ that 
was another thing ; he accepted, and gave us aiiother 
of his pleasant books ^ ^' Au Maroc. " 

The reader who expects to find in Loti tables of 
distances^ political disquisitions^ or essays on com- 
merce and trade statistics, will be disappointed, for 
these subjects, and all allied to them, he holds in 
suprejne contempt. He states his creed very explic- 
itly in his introduction to ^''Morocco.'' Notwith- 
standing this apparent inattention to detail, however, 
it will be found that he is a close observer, otherwise 
he could not give siich vivid and faithful pictures 
of the scenes that he describes. He not only sees^ 
but feels; and when, to this faculty, there is added 
a poetic imagination and an equaled power of 
word-painting, it is not surprising that his books 
are considered very charming reading. It is doubt- 
ful if there is any other traveler who has the power 
to impress his reader as he does with a sense of 
verisi?nilittide ; his wordpictures are so warm, so 
glowing, that one feels they must be true. Let the 
reader who is disposed to mount with hint his 
^^ broW7i, broad-chested horse, with flying mane and 
tail,'' decide how faithfully he keeps the promise 
with which he concludes his preface to the present 
volume. 

M. LotVs wanderi?igs have led him to almost 
every quarter of the globe, and he has given us 
books whose scenes are laid in the South- Pacific, 



Preface by the Translator. ii 

Japan ^ and Eastern Asia, Northerji Africa, and 
his own sicnny land of France. His more recent 
works — " Z<? Roman d'un Enfajit,'' and "Z<? 
Livre de la Pitie et de la Mort,'' — are introspec- 
tive, and rather melancholy, not to say sombre, i?i 
their tone. It is to be hoped that before he fifially 
assumes his seat at the domestic fireside he will 
give us some inore of his delightful " impressions de 
voyage."" 

E. P. ROBINS, 
October, iSoi. 







,^^ -^i 



INTO MOROCCO 



I. 

March 26th, 1889. 

FROM the southern coast of Spain, from 
Algesiras and GibraUar, can be seen 
across the strait, Tangier the White. This 
Moroccan city, posted like a sentinel upon the 
northernmost point of Africa, is quite near our 
Europe ; the mail-boats reach it in three or four 
hours, and every winter it is visited by many 
tourists. It has become very common-place, 
and the Sultan of Morocco partially abandons it 
to foreign visitors and ceases to interest himself 
in it, looking upon it as an infidel city. Seen 
from the deck of the approaching steamer, it has 
a cheerful, gay appearance, with its villas in the 
European style standing among their gardens ; 
still, it has a foreign look, and remains more 



^^"^ 



"'y 



14 Into Mo7'occo. 



Mussulman in appearance than our Algerian 
cities, with its walls of snowy white, its crenellated 
Casbah and its minarets covered with old earthen 
plates. 

It is singular to note how much more strik- 
ing is the effect produced by arriving here, 
than that produced by arriving at any other of 
the African ports of the Mediterranean. In 
spite of the tourists who land with me, in spite 
of the few French signs that are displayed here 
and there in front of the hotels and bazaars, as 
I step onto the wharf of Tangier to-day under the 
bright noon-day sun, I feel somehow as if I had 
suddenly taken a step backward through past 
centuries. How remote we are, all at once, from 
Spain, where we were only this morning; from the 
railroad, from the speedy and comfortable steam- 
boat, from the very time in which we had thought 
we were living ! Something like a winding sheet 
o seems to have been dropped behind us, deadening 

the sounds of elsewhere, checking the currents of 
modern life ; the old, old winding sheet of Islam, 
which will no doubt enshroud us more and more 
closely in a few days, when we shall have ad- 
vanced more deeply into this gloomy country, 
but which already produces a sensible effect on 
imaginations fresh from European contact. 






* 



Into Morocco. 15 

Two guards, Selim and Kaddour, in the ser- 
vice of our minister, looking like characters from 
the Bible, in their long flowing woolen robes, are 
awaiting us at the wharf in order to conduct us 
to the French legation. Gravely they walk be- 
fore us, with their staves driving from our path 
the small jackasses that here supply the place 
of trucks and drays, which are totally unknown. 
AVe climb upward to the city along a sort of nar- 
row pathway, between crenellated walls, which 
rise in steps, one above the other, white and 
melancholy as snow-banks. Those whom we 
meet, robed in white also, like the walls, drag 
their slippered feet noiselessly through the dust 
with majestic unconcern, and it is easy to see, 
simply by their way of walking, that they have 
nothing in common with the activities of our age. 

We have to cross the main street, where we 
notice a few Spanish shops, some French or 
English signs, and among the multitude of bour- 
nouses, alas ! some gentlemen in cork hats and 
some pretty young lady travellers bearing upon 
their cheeks the mark where the sun has kissed 
them. But no matter ; Tangier is Arab still, 
even in the quarter devoted to trade. And 
farther on, as we approach the French legation, 
where hospitality is extended to me, there com- 
mences the labyrinth of little narrow streets, 



1 6 l7ito Morocco. 

where the houses are buried under successive 
coats of whitewash that have been applied and 
renewed from remote times. 



II. 



AT sunset of the day of our arrival, I pro- 
ceed to pay my initial visit to our travel- 
ling camp, which is being made ready for 
us out yonder on a lonely elevation beyond the 
walls, overlooking Tangier. It is a small migrat- 
ory city, complete in itself, already set up and 
inhabited by our Arab escort ; around it our 
horses, our camels and our bat-mules, tethered 
with long cords, are grazing on the short, sweet 
grass ; it is all like a tribe on the move, a douar j 
a Bedouin odor is prevalent through it all, and 
mournful songs, sung in falsetto, and the twang- 
ing of guitars are heard proceeding from the 
tents of the camel-drivers. The whole, men, 
material and cattle, was provided by the Sul- 
tan for the comfort of our minister. I satisfy 
myself with a long look at these persons and 
things, with whom we must be familiar and live, 
who are soon to penetrate with us into this un- 
known land. 

The falling night and the cold wind, which, 
as is always the case, springs up with the fading 



Into Morocco. 17 

light, increase the feeling of remoteness from 
home which impressed me when I first touched 
the soil of Morocco. 

The western sky is of a clear dark blue, verg- 
ing into a pale, extremely cold yellow ; Tangier, 
visible down below me in the distance, resembles 
a hap-hazard collection of stone-blocks upon a 
mountain side ; as it grows darker, its white 
tones change to tints of a cold steely blue ; be- 
yond stretches the dark blue of the sea ; still be- 
yond, like a phantom of slate gray, rise the 
shores of Spain, of Europe, with which this 
country, it seems, has as little intercourse as pos- 
sible. Seen from here, this portion of our own 
world, which I left behind me so few hours ago, 
seems to have suddenly retreated to an immeas- 
urable distance. 

On my way back to Tangier I pass through 
the place of the Grande Marche, lying a little 
above the city, outside the old crenellated walls 
and the ancient ogival gateways. It is almost 
dark. Covering the ground for the space of 
about a hundred square metres is a mass of brown 
objects that move uneasily ; kneeling camels, 
making ready for their night's rest, interspersed 
promiscuously with Bedouins and bales of mer- 
chandise ; caravans, that over blind and danger- 
ous roads have perhaps started from the confines 



1 8 Into Morocco. 

of the desert, aiming to reach this place, where 
old Africa ends, facing the shores of Europe, at 

<-^. the gateway of our modern civilization. The 

hoarse sound of human voices and the grunting 
of animals arise from the confused masses that 
cover the place. A negro fortune-teller is sing- 
ing softly and beating his drum in front of a lit- 
tle fire, which flares up and casts its yellow light 
upon the persons Avho squat around it in a circle. 
The night air grows cooler and cooler and sends 

>v forth damp exhalations. The stars shine out in 

the clear depths of the sky. And now a great 
Arab pipe sets up its wailing lament, drowning 
all other sounds in its shrill yelpmg tones .... 
Ah ! I had almost forgotten that sound ; how 
many years it is since it last pierced my ears ! 
It makes me shiver, and now I receive a very 
vivid, a very striking impression of Africa ; such 
an impression as one only receives the day of 
landing, such as one does not have on succeed- 
ing days, when the faculty of comparison has be- 
come blunted by contact with novelty. 

It keeps it up, does the pipe, with increasing 
fury, its monotonous, ear-splitting melody, and I 
rein in my horse that I may hear the better ; it 
seems to me that the air it is playing is the 

^0 hymn of by-gone times, the hymn of the dead 

past. For a moment I feel a strange pleasure in 






.Oo 



Into Morocco. 19 

reflecting that as yet I am only on the sill, at the 
gateway that has been profaned by the footsteps 
of the world, of this empire of the Moghreb into 
which I am soon to penetrate ; that Fez, our des- 
tination, lies far away beneath the consuming 
sun, deep-buried in the bosom of this inanimate, 
close- walled country, where life is now the same 
that it was a thousand years ago. 

III. 

April 3rd. 

EIGHT days have passed in preparations 
and delay. 

During the week spent at Tangier we have 
been bustling about, very busy in inspecting 
tents and in testing and selecting horses and 
mules. And many times have we climbed the 
hill out yonder, where our camp has been steadily 
waxing in size as objects, animate and inanimate, 
poured into it ; always standing, as it does, fac- 
ing the distant shores of Europe. 

At length it has been definitely decided that 
we set out to-morrow morning. 

Yesterday and to-day the vicinity of the French 
legation is like a port where emigrants are em- 
barking, or a town given over to pillage. The 
little white, winding streets are filled with great 



20 Into Morocco. 

bales and boxes by ihe hundred, all covered with 
Morocco carpets striped with many colors, and 
secured by cords made of rushes. 

IV. 

April 4th. 

TO guard our countless packages our people 
have slept in the street, bundled up in 
their bournouses and their heads buried in 
their hoods (capuchons)^ looking like so many 
shapeless heaps of gray wool. At break of 
day, all shake off their uncomfortable torpor, 
awake and are on foot. At first the uncertain 
calls and the hesitating steps of people between 
sleeping and waking, soon to be succeeded by 
shouts and fierce disputes. The harshness and 
the deep-drawn aspirates of the Arab tongue, 
moreover, as it is used by the common people, 
might induce one to believe that they were over- 
whelming each other with abuse. All the usual 
morning sounds, such as the crowing of cocks, 
the neighing of horses, the braying of mules and 
the grunting of camels in the nearby caravansery 
are drowned in this grand concert of disturbance, 
which increases continually in volume. Before 
sunrise it has reached an infernal height ; shrill 
cries, such as we hear from monkeys, a wild pan- 



Into Morocco. 21 

demonium fit to curdle one's blood. In my half 
awake condition, I should imagine, were I not 
familiar with their African splutter, that there 
was a fight going on under my windows, and 
that, too, of the fiercest kind; that they were kill- 
ing and eating each other. As it is, I just say 
to myself : "Our cattle are coming up and our 
muleteers are commencing to load them." 

It is no small matter, it is true, to load a hun- 
dred headstrong mules and stupid camels in these 
little streets that are scant two metres wide. 
There is no place for the animals to turn, and 
they snort in their distress ; some of the cases 
are too large, and are caught in the angles of the 
walls ; there are encounters, collisions, and kicks. 

Along about eight o'clock, the tumult is at its 
height. Seen from the terraces of the legation, 
as far as the eye can reach, all is an inextricable 
confusion of men and beasts, all giving tongue 
at the very top of their voice. Besides the bat- 
mules, there are those of our Arab escort, 
equipped with harness of a thousand colors, with 
high-peaked saddles on their backs and saddle- 
cloths of red, blue or yellow cloth, hanging down 
like skirts. The brown-faced, white-robed horse- 
men are already in the saddle, their long, thin 
muskets slung behind their backs. The whole 
train, which is to precede us under the conduct 






2 2 Into M07'0CC0. 

of a Cadi sent by the Sultan, gradually and with 
difficulty puts itself in motion, man by man ; 
by dint of many a sliout and blow, they all melt 
away in the direction of the city gates, and finally 
leave the little streets around us clear. 

Then comes the turn of the beggars — and 
they are plentiful in Tangier; the halt, the lame, 
the blind with bleeding holes where eyes should 
be, mad men, idiots ; all flock to the legation to 
say good-by. Observant of custom, the minister 
appears upon the door-sill and throws outhand- 
fuls of small silver money, so as to deserve the 
prayers which are to bring good luck to our car- 
avan. 



One o'clock of the afternoon is the hour fixed 
for our departure. The rendezvous is appointed 
at the place of the Grand-Marche^ the spot where, 
on the evening of my landing, I first heard the 
never-to-be-forgotten music of the Arab pipes. 
The great, muddy, stony esplanade lies over- 
hanging the city, its dimensions extending far in 
every direction. Here the surface of the ground 
is constantly concealed by a layer of kneeling 
camels, and the behooded, becloaked crowd, 
where a reddish earth color predominates, 

'^o swarms and stirs with the activity of an ant hill. 

o> "-: All which is arriving from, and all which is de- 



Into Morocco. 23 

parting for, the far regions beyond the desert, as- 
semble and are confounded upon this place. 
Here, from morning to night, the drum rattles 
and the flute wails, and fortune-tellers, fire-eaters 
and snake-charmers ply their trade. 

To-day the usual bustle and turmoil is in- 
creased by the formation of our caravan. Be- 
fore noon, under the bright sunlight, the first of 
our horsemen begin to make their appearance ; 
our guard of honor, the headmen, and the Sul- 
tan's standard-bearer, who is to march at the 
head of our column during the entire journey. 

It is high market in the place ; hundreds of 
camels, mangy and repulsive, are kneeling in the 
dust, stretching their long, hairless necks to right 
and left with snake-like undulations, and swarms 
of peasants and paupers in gray bournous and 
brown tunics move about confusedly among the 
reclining animals. It is an immense confusion, 
all of one same dead neutral tint, serving ad- 
mirably as a foil to the white city, overtopped by 
its green minarets, and the deep blue Mediter- 
ranean, as they lie basking in the splendid light. 
The oriental coloring of our horsemen, too, 
stands out more boldly against this dull back- 
ground ; their pink, orange or yellow caftans, 
their saddle-cloths of red stuff, or of velvet of 
many shades. Our embassy is composed of fif- 



24 Into Morocco. 

teen persons, of whom seven are officers, and the 
uniforms add their gold and color to increase the 
diversity of the picture. We are accompanied 
by five chasseui's d'Afrique in their blue cloaks. 
In addition to all this, almost the entire European 
colony has come out on horseback to see us off; 
there are the foreign ministers, the attaches of the 
legation, the painters, and good-natured people of 
all sorts. And here comes, too, the Pacha of Tan- 
gier, to see us as far as the verge of his dominions; 
a venerable, white-bearded man he is, with a 
head like a prophet, clothed in white from head 
to foot and mounted on a white mule with red 
trappings, which is led by the bridle by four at- 
tendants. Any one beholding us might take us 
for a cavalcade taken from some theatrical spec- 
tacle. 

Let us turn in our saddles and bid a last fare- 
well to Tangier the White, whose terraces lie far 
beneath us, sloping down the mountain-side to 
the sea ; let us not forget, too, to say farewell to 
those bluish mountains that are visible across 
the strait, for they are in Andalusia, the extreme 
southern point of Europe, so soon to fade away 
from our view. One o'clock has come, the hour 
appointed for us to march. The red standard of 
the Sultan, which is to be our guide to Fez, is 
shaken out to the breeze, surmounted by. its 



Into Morocco. 25 

brass globe ; the drums and flutes of the mounte- 
banks serve for martial music, and so our column 
is off, very gay and brilliant, even if somewhat 
disorderly. 

Our horses are feeling good, too, and dance 
along the sandy roads of the suburbs as they are 
wont to do at the start of an expedition. Our 
way at first lies between rows of European villas 
and hotels, where some good-looking lady tourists 
have congregated under the shade of their para- 
sols to see us pass. We really might almost 
think we were in Algeria, at some review or 
other military ceremony, were it not that the 
terrible condition of the roads and the entire ab- 
sence of wheeled vehicles give to the approaches 
of Tangier a strange and unusual appearance. 

All our surroundings, however, quickly 
change their aspect. After riding four or 
five hundred metres, the aloe-bordered avenue 
which we have been following all at once dries 
up, so to speak ; disappears among the fields 
and is seen no more. There is never a road in 
Morocco in any place whatsoever. There are goat 
tracks that have been widenened and deepened 
by the passage of caravans, and one is at liberty 
to ford the rivers wherever fancy may dictate. 



26 Into Morocco, 

To-day these pathways are in horrible condition. 
The soil, saturated by the winter's rains, gives 
way everywhere beneath our horses' feet, and the 
poor beasts sink deep into the yielding quag- 
mire of black mud. 

One by one the friends who have accompanied 
us so far leave us and turn their horses' heads 
towards home, after a warm shake of the hand 
and many a wish for a safe journey. Tangier, 
too, has at last disappeared behind the lonely 
hills. Soon we are abandoned to ourselves, to 
follow the red standard of the Sultan, which 
we shall have to do during a ride of some twelve 
days, alone in this wild, silent land, where the 
sun pours down floods of light. 



TIME, eight o'clock on the evening of the 
same day. Place, under my tent, by the 
light of a lantern, in some spot or other where 
we have pitched our camp for the night. Left 
suddenly quite to m^yself in the midst of the 
deepest silence, calm after the turmoil and excite- 
ment of the day and resting peacefully upon my 
little camp-bed, I take pleasure in reflecting upon 
the great regions that stretch away around us, 
where there are no roads, no houses, no protec- 
tion from the weather, no inhabitants. 



Into Morocco. 27 

The rain beats against the tight-stretched can- 
vas, which is my walls and roof, and I liear the 
whistling of the wind. The weather, which was 
so fine at our departure, took a change for the 
worse as night came on. 

We made but a short stage of it on this first day; 
only some twelve or thirteen miles. Before day- 
light left us we could discern our little travelling 
city standing waiting for us, cheerful and hos- 
pitable, all white among the green solitude. 
It was started off in good season this morning, 
reached its destination, was unpacked and set up, 
and the two flags of France and Morocco were 
flying over it in fraternal union when we came 
up. There is a Cadi who is responsible for the 
tents, who?e duty it is to attend to the pitching 
of the camp at night and the breaking of it in 
the morning. The sites are. always selected in 
advance, close to rivers or springs, and as far as 
possible on dry ground where there is good graz- 
ing for the animals. 

My bed, which is very light, is comfortably ar- 
ranged on my two boxes, so as to be sufficiently 
elevated above the floor, out of reach of the ants 
and crickets ; my saddle serves as a pillow, and 
I am wrapped in a coverlet of Morocco wool, 
striped with orange and green, which keeps 



28 Into Morocco. 

me warm and comfortable, while the cool night 
wind blows in on me loaded with the health- 
bearing odor of grass and wild flowers. Over 
my head the roof is shaped ]ike a great umbrella; 
it is white, the seams are ornamented with blue 
lace and finished off with gores of red leather. 
Surrounding it, like one of those moveable can- 
vases which serve to enclose a circus tent or a 
merry-go-round, a ta?'abieh is fastened, that is to 
say, a sort of little circular wall of white duck, 
set off in the same way with blue lace and red 
gores, and kept in place by stakes driven into 
the ground. All the tents in Morocco used by 
chiefs and by persons of the higher class are con- 
structed on this model. There would be room 
enough for five or six beds like mine, but the 
Sultan in his munificence has alloted to each of 
us a separate dwelling. 

For a floor I have the short, close turf embroid- 
ered with the blooms of a minute variety of iris; 
it makes a beautiful, sweet-scented carpet, in the 
midst of which three or four marigolds, spring- 
ing here and there, stand out like small rosettes 
of gold. 

My companions and our Arab escort are doubt- 
less doing as I have done ; they have gone to 
bed and are preparing for sleep ; throughout the 
camp no sound of man is to be heard. 



Ijito Morocco. 29 

And while I am revelling in this restful silence, 
in these fresh odors, and this pure bracing air, 
behold ! I chance to cast my eyes upon an arti- 
cle by Huysmans in a review that I happen to 
have brought with me, descriptive of the delights 
of a sleeping-car ; the sooty smoke of the lamps, 
the crowding and the bad smells of the contract- 
ed berths ; above all, the charms of the neighbor 
overhead, a fat, flabby, wheezy gentleman of fifty, 
with charms dangling from his watch-chain, glass 
in eye and cigar in mouth. My feeling of su- 
preme content increases with the certainty that 
this neighbor of Huysmans is too far away to 
trouble me. The portrait of the self-important, 
elderly gentleman of our time, travelling express, 
is sketched with a master hand. In my delight 
at knowing that this kind of a character does not 
as yet favor Morocco with his presence, I am 
conscious of a dawning feeling of gratitude 
toward the Sultan of Fez, for that he will have 
no sleeping-cars in his empire, and that he does 
not interfere with the wild by-ways where we 
can gallop our horses in the open air. 

At midnight the hail is beating on the ground 
outside and my canvas walls are shaken by a 
sharp squall of wind. Then a confused sound 



30 Into Morocco. 

is heard of approaching voices, and some one 
carries a lantern around my abode ; the forms of 
those without are reproduced on the tightly- 
drawn canvas as gigantic arabesques, as if in a 
transparency. It is the officer of the guard with 
his men, coming with mallets to drive my tent- 
pegs, for fear lest the wind should carry away my 
house. 

It seems that wlien the Sultan is travelling 
with his great tent, which requires sixty mules 
for its transportation, if the wind gets high dur- 
ing the night the mallets are not called into re- 
quisition, lest the noise disturb the slumbers of 
the master and the pretty ladies of the harem. 
But a regiment is routed out and seated in a 
circle around the ambulatory palace and there 
remains until daylight, holding in its m.any hands 
the ropes which keep the walls in place. The 
story was told me to-day by a gentleman who was 
for a long time an inmate of his majesty's house- 
hold, as we were trotting along side by side; this 
squall puts me in mind of it ; — and so I com- 
mit myself again to slumber, to dream of this 
court of Fez, where so many mysterious veiled 
beauties dwell in seclusion behind the envious 
walls. 



Into Morocco. 31 

About two o'clock in the morning we are 
again aroused from our slumbers ; horses are 
snorting, hoofs thundering over the plain, Arabs 
shouting. Our animals have stampeded and 
broken loose, maddened by some indefinable 
terror. I liope that they will take another direc- 
tion than mine, and not come and entangle them- 
selves in the ropes and upset my tent ; that 
would be no end of a nuisance, with the rain 
pouring down as it does. 

Praise be to Allah ! the mad hunt takes an- 
other direction and is soon swallowed up in the 
surrounding darkness. Then I hear our men 
bringing back the fugitives, and peace is restored 
— silence — sleep. 

VI. 

April 5th. 

AT six o'clock, broad daylight, the bugle of 
one of our chasseurs d'Afrique sounds 
for reveille. We must be quick in turning 
out and getting into our clothes ; already the 
Arabs are in my abode to pull it down — my white 
duck house that got such a soaking in last night's 
rain. The work is done in less time than it 
takes to tell it ; the wind cooperating, the can- 
vas rises, flutters an instant with a noise like the 



.^■^ 



32 Into Morocco. 



\^ I * * 



sail of a ship going about, then falls flat upon 
the wet grass ; I fasten my spurs and finish the 
other details of my toilette in the open air. The 
little flowers which slept under my roof-tree will 
have their liberty again, will again enjoy the re- 
freshing showers, and again will be consigned to 
solitude. 

All our camp is dismantled in the same man- 
ner, is folded up, is tied in packages secured 
with many thongs, and is loaded on the backs of 
the kicking mules and grunting camels. For- 
ward ! Camp is broken. 

Our horses are in great spirits at the start ; 
they dance, whinny, amuse themselves with a 
pretense of attack and defence. 

Our second day's march commences among 
mountains covered with thickets of holm-oak, 
with heather and daffodils. You scarcely ever 
see a tree in Morocco, but as if to atone for 
this, there are the grand tranquil lines of the 
virgin landscape, unbroken by roads, houses or 
fences. The country is uncultivated, left to lie 
almost in its primitive state, but it appears to be 
wonderfully fertile. Here and there you will 
see a few fields of wheat or barley, to which it 
has not been deemed necessary to give the 
rectangular form which obtains with us, and 



Into Morocco. 'ii'h 

which present the appearance of meadows of a 
tender green. How restful to the eye is this, 
after our petty French system of farming, the 
land cut up and parceled out in squares like a 
checker-board. Before this time, in other lands, 
I have felt what a comfort it is to live where 
space is free and where the title to land rests in 
no one ; there it seems ihat the horizon extends 
immeasurably further, that the field of vision is 
infinitely enlarged, and that the far-stretching 
landscape has no bounds. 

Drawn in relief against the tranquil green 
distance that keeps unrolling itself before us, 
some fifty metres or so in advance of the main 
body, our advance guard is constantly to be 
seen, the guides whom we follow as they un- 
interruptedly recede before us ; three horse-men 
riding abreast. The middle one is a tall old 
negro of majestic carriage, in pink cloth caftan 
and bournous and turban of snowy \\ hite, carry- 
ing high aloft the standard of the Sultan, the red 
silk standard with its globe of brass ; those at 
his side, negroes as well and similarly dressed, 
holding in their hands their long muskets, the 
bright barrels of which gleam out against the 
bluish background of the mountains and the 
plains. 



34 I'>^to Morocco. 

About ten o'clock, beneath 4 sky as gray as 
ever and in the midst of a country that has lost 
nothing of its verdure and its wildness, we are 
conscious of a motionless array of men on horse- 
back, drawn up in line to receive us. We are 
about to change from one territory to another, 
and all the men of the tribe which we are ap- 
proaching are under arms, their chief at their 
head, to receive us. As is customary upon the 
passage of an embassy, they will escort us 
through their country, and our late companions 
will return to Tangier whence they came. 

As we look upon them at rest and at a dis- 
tance, what a strange set of cavaliers they are ! 
Perched on their lean little horses, on their 
high peaked saddles that are almost like easy- 
chairs, they look like so many old women 
shrouded in long, white veils, or like old black- 
faced dolls, or old mummies. They carry long, 
thin sticks covered with shining tin — but these 
are the barrels of their muskets — their heads 
are all done up in muslin and their bournouses 
hang down over their horses like shawls. 

We draw near, and quickly, at a word of 
command given in hoarse tones, the whole 
array scatters like a swarm of bees, horses curv- 
eting, arms jingling, men shouting. Under 
the spur their steeds rear, leap, gallop like 



Into Morocco. 35 

frightened gazelles, mane and tail flying in the 
wind, clearing rocks and great stones at a 
bound. At the same instant the old dolls have 
been restored to life ; they, too, have become 
superb ; they are metamorphosed into tall, 
active men, with fine keen faces, standing erect 
in their great silver-plated stirrups. The white 
bournouses, which but lately made them look 
ridiculous, now fly open and stream behind 
them in the wind with the most exquisite grace, 
revealing beneath robes of red, orange and 
green cloth, and saddles with housings of pink, 
yellow and blue silk embroidered in gold. And 
the fine symmetrical arms of the men, of the 
color of light bronze, emerge from the wide 
sleeves that are turned back as far as the shoul- 
der, brandishing in the air in their headlong 
course the heavy bronze muskets which, in 
their hands, seem no heavier than reeds. It is 
a first welcoming fantasia,^ given in our honor. 
As soon as it is concluded, the chief who played 
the part of leader comes forward to our minis- 
ter and extends his hand. We say farewell to 
our companions of yesterday, who withdraw, 
and under the escort of our new hosts we con- 
tinue our journey. 

* Fantasia — an exhibition of Arab hard riding. 



36 l7ito Morocco. 



VII. 



1 REMEMBER travelling all the afternoon 
of tills day over interminable sandy plains, 
covered with fern, very like our landes in 
the south of France. These plains, extend- 
ing as far as the eye could reach, were of a 
bright, soft green, the tender green of early 
April. One thin ray of sunshine fell on them 
persistently just at the spot where we chanced 
to be, as if the light were following us, while all 
around us the grand mountain horizons, over 
which the black clouds were hanging low, melted 
into the sky in ominous, oppressive darkness. 
The sunlight, filtered through the misty curtain, 
gave a pale effect of silver plated with gold, and 
it was an unexpected sight to find these African 
plains so clouded and so fresh. 

As we rode along, our horses' hoofs, crushing 
the stalks and leaves, brought out very per- 
ceptibly the delicate odor of the ferns, and this 
recalled to my mind the fine June mornings of 
the country of my birth, and the coming to 
market of the hampers of cherries. (In Sain- 
tonge cherries are always packed for transpor- 
tation in fern-leaves, hence the two odors are 
always inseparable in my mind). 

Every five minutes, on both sides of our 



l7ito Morocco. 37 

column, bands of Arab horsemen, going like 
the wind in a direction opposite to ours, would 
meet us. The sound of their horse's tread was 
scarcely to be heard on the sand or the vegeta- 
tion ; the only warning that we would receive of 
their approach was a faint clank of arms and 
the noise of their bournouses as the wind took 
them ; it was more like a squall singing through 
the rigging of a ship, or the noise made by the 
flight of a large flock of birds. We would find 
difficulty in getting out of their way, so as to 
avoid being run down by them. And at the 
moment of meeting us, they would utter a hoarse 
cry and then fire a blank cartridge from their 
long muskets, enveloping us in the smoke. 
These fleeting visions, these warlike nightmares 
in their swift flight, thus continued appearing 
incessantly to our right or to our left. 

It was only toward evening that tliere was a 
cessation of these fantasias. The country 
around us took on a still more beautiful green 
and might almost be said to be wooded ; there 
were clumps of olive-trees, and the dwarf palms 
were so old and tall as almost to reach the dig- 
nity of trees. Here and there hamlets were 
seen on the hillsides, their walls of beaten clay 
and roofed with gray thatch, the whole sur- 
rounded and almost concealed by hedges of 



38 Into Morocco. 

cactus of dark green, bordering on blue. And 
from these formidable enclosures, all bristling 
with needle-like thorns, women, clad in ragged 
robes of gray wool, came forth at our approach 
to do us honor with cries of "you ! you ! you ! 
you ! " uttered in shrill, piercing tones like those 
of martins as they circle through the air of a 
calm summer's evening. Then we left this in- 
habited region behind us, and after fording two 
or three streams, down in a fresh green level, we 
saw our men just completing the work of setting 
up our camp. Our horses whinnied with pleas- 
ure at the sight. 

* * 

Our little city never changes ; it is always laid 
out on one unvarying plan, as if it were carried 
about in its entirety on rollers. Each of us as he 
comes up, goes straight to his own abode, which 
always occupies the same position relatively to 
the others ; there he finds his bed, liis traps and 
his Moroccan carpet laid over the primeval 
carpet of grass and flowers. We travel with all 
the comforts of a tribe of nomads, with nothing 
to trouble us, only having to enjoy the free air, 
the motion and the limitless space. 

Our fifteen tents are arranged in a true circle, 
enclosing a sort of place, or inner pasture ground 
where our horses graze. Each one is like the 



Into Morocco. 39 

other, the central pole surmounted by a great 
ball of copper and the outside of the walls deco- 
rated with rows of arabesques in dark blue, 
contrasting boldly with the prevailing white. 
(These arabesques are made of pieces of cloth 
cut out and sewed on ; they are of one unvary- 
ing, extremely ancient design, dating back to 
remote antiquity : the same that the Arabs carve 
in stone on the top of the walls of their mosques, 
that they embroider on the border of their silk 
curtains, that they employ in decorating their 
pottery ware ; they are also to be seen on the 
panelling of the Alcazar and the Alhambra.) 

The tents of the camel-drivers, the muleteers 
and the guards form a second circle outside of 
and surrounding our own. They are smaller 
and more pointed than ours, of an uniform gray- 
ish color, and arranged in a less orderly manner. 
They form a quarter that is purely Arab in 
character, where our pack-animals are tied and 
from whence the sound of strange weird music 
is heard issuing in the watches of the nigh 

The appearance of the motuia is always the 
most noteworthy event of the conclusion of our 
day's journey ; it generally appears about twi- 
light, accompanied by a long procession, and is 



40 Into Morocco. 

deposited on the ground before our minister's 
tent. I must be pardoned for using this Arab 
word, but it has no equivalent in French : it is 
the tithe, or contribution, that our character of 
embassy gives us the right of levying on the dif- 
ferent tribes along our route. Were it not for 
this mou7ia, which is ordered a long time ahead 
and frequently brought from a great distance, 
we should be liable to die of starvation in this 
country where there are no markets, no inns, 
scarcely even a village, where the land is a wil- 
derness. 

Our 77iouna this evening is of royal abund- 
ance. In the fading daylight we see a line of 
sedate, white-robed men advancing in the midst 
of our camp ; their handsome chief, a man of 
noble bearing, marches with stately step at their 
head. As we catch sight of them, our minister 
withdraws within his tent, so as to receive them 
at his threshold, in accordance with the dictates 
of Oriental etiquette. The first ten men bear 
great jars filled with butter made of the milk of 
sheep, then come jars of milk and baskets of 
eggs, round wicker baskets containing live chick- 
ens tied together by the paws, four mules laden 
with loaves of bread, oranges and melons ; finally 
twelve sheep, which men drag along by the 
horns, and which are reluctant to enter the camp, 



Into Morocco. 41 

poor things, as if foreseeing that there is some- 
thing evil in store for them. There is sufficient 
to feed ten caravans like ours, but it would be 
fatal to our dignity to decline any part of it. 
Then, too, the guards and muleteers are waiting 
for their share with the greediness of their wild 
nature ; all night long they will make good 
cheer, they will have enough left over for to-mor- 
row, and there will be enough of the fragments 
to feed the stray dogs and the jackals. Such is 
the custom that has prevailed for ages ; in the 
camp of an ambassador there must be an unin- 
terrupted feast. 

* * 
All fall to upon the quarry the moment the 
minister has returned thanks to the givers, which 
he does by a simple movement of the head, as is 
fitting in the case of a very great lord. At a sign 
our people come forward ; the bread, the butter, 
the eggs are divided up and carried off in the 
folds of the bournous, in hoods, in baskets of 
grass, in the pack-saddles of the mules. The 
sheep are taken behind the cooking tents to an 
evil-looking little nook that we seem to carry 
with us in our travels day by day, and they have 
to be dragged there forcibly, for they understand 
what is awaiting them and struggle and hang back. 
There, by the expiring daylight, with scarcely 



42 Into Morocco. 

light to see, they are slaughtered with a blunt 
knife ; the ground is ahvays bloody in that little 
nook. The chickens, too, are killed there by 
dozens, the head being only partially separated 
from the body so that they may flutter for a long 
time and drain themselves of their blood. Then 
fires are everywhere lighted for the Pantagruelian 
Bedouin cooking ; little yellc:v flames run flick- 
ering here and there over the piles of dry 
branches, bringing out sharply groups of camels 
and mules that before were invisible in the dark- 
ness, or the forms of the tall, white-robed, ghost- 
like Arabs. In the midst of the wild country, 
which extends around us on every side in an im- 
mense circle and which appears darker and 
darker than ever now that the fires are lighted, 
we might be taken for a camp of gypsies engaged 
in an orgy. 

The weather continues overcast and very dark; 
it is almost cold. We are in a region of pasture 
land and marshes. And while the preparations 
for the feast are going on, the frogs simultane- 
ously commence their nightly concert in all di- 
rections, even in the remote distance, an eternal 
music which has been performed in all ages and 
in all lands. 



* * 



Into Morocco. 43 

About eight o'clock, just as we are finishing 
dinner ninder the great tent which does duty as 
our common dining-room, some one informs the 
minister that a heifer has been sacrificed to 
him out-doors there, at the doorway of his 
tent, and we take a lantern and go out to 
learn who has offered the sacrifice and the 
reason of it. 

It is a custom in Morocco thus to sacrifice 
animals at the feet of great men as they pass 
on their journeys when there is a boon to be 
requested. The victim must die a lingering 
death, parting with its blood drop by drop. 
If the great man is disposed to look with favor 
upon the petition, he accepts the offering and 
directs his servants to remove the carcass to 
be cooked and eaten ; in the contrary case he 
continues his journey without turning his head, 
and the rejected offering is left to the ravens. 
It seems that sometimes when the Sultan is 
travelling, the road which he has followed may 
be traced by the dead bodies of animals. 

The heifer, still alive, lies before the minis- 
ter's tent, across his doorway ; it is breathing 
heavily, with wide extended nostrils ; the light 
of the lantern shines upon the blood which runs 
from its throat and collects in a pool upon the 
grass. And there are the supplicants, three 



44 ^nio Morocco. 

women, embracing with their arms the flag-staff 
which bears the standard of France. 

They belong to the neighboring tribe. Dur- 
ing the first few moments of the repast with 
which our guards were gluttonously appeasing 
their hunger, under cover of night, they suc- 
ceeded in penetrating among our tents without 
being perceived ; then, when efforts were made 
to drive them out, they attached themselves to 
the fiag-staff, as if its protection secured them 
from danger of attack, and no one dared to 
remove them forcibly. They brought with them 
four or five little young ones, clinging to their 
garments or suspended from their necks. In 
the darkness, and with their veils down, it is 
impossible to tell whether they are young and 
pretty, or old and ugly, while their forms are 
effectually concealed by their loose flowing 
robes, hanging suspended from their shoulders, 
where they are fastened by great plates of gleam- 
ing silver. The interpreter comes up and more 
lanterns are brought, which bring out in sharper 
relief the group of white-clad forms around the 
beast which lies drawing its last breath upon 
the ground. 

They are the three wives of a chief of the 
neighborhood. For certain misdeeds, unneces- 
sary to mention here, their husband was im- 



Into Morocco. 45 

prisoned at Tangier some two years ago, at the 
instance of the French legation ; and now 
they would like to have the new French min- 
ister, as an act of mercy upon his accession, 
intercede with the Sultan of Fez to give the 
prisoner his liberty. 

He may be very guilty, this chief ; whether 
he is or not I won't pretend to say ; but his 
wives might move a heart of stone. The minis- 
ter is of the same opinion, so far as I can see, 
and, although he will not formally commit him- 
self at the moment, their cause seems to me in 
a fair way for a favorable decision. 

VIII. 

April 6th. 

ABOUT five or six o'clock in the morning, 
before reveille sounds, I raise the flap of 
my tent and look out ; the first early view of the 
surrounding country produces an unexpected 
impression. 

A sky of uniform darkness overhangs all the 
broad green country in which we are ; great plains 
stretch away, covered with irises, with dwarf 
palms, with daffodils, and here and there with 
great tufts of daisies, so thick that they look like 
drifts of snow ; all wet and heavy with rain or 



46 Into Morocco. 

dew. In the distance, this vivid green becomes 
darker beneath the heavy, low-hanging clouds ; 
it turns to a dark gray, and finally, off toward 
the horizon, it gradually shades off into the 
black of the mountains and the sky : a cheerless 
dawn to look upon, in a spot that lies lost in the 
midst of an immense primeval country. 

The servants have been early astir, and the 
mules, ready saddled, stand crowded against each 
other, sleeping on their feet, while their high- 
peaked saddles, covered with red cloth, form 
brilliant splashes of color on the neutral tints, 
the grays and blacks, of the background. There 
they stand, motionless, as if they had been made 
ready for some fairy spectacle for which there 
are no spectators. One by one our guards 
awake and come from their tents, stretching 
their long brown arms, their robes and their veils 
always giving them the appearance of lean old 
women, or gigantic gypsies. 

The supplicants of last evening, they, too, are 
still there ! In spite of the drenching rain, it 
seems that they have spent the night cowering in 
front of the minister's tent. Their numbers have 
even increased this morning : old women, young 
women, the captive's entire family, no doubt, and 
poor little babies, hooded after the Bedouin 
fashion, sleeping in their mother's bosom, be- 



Into Morocco. 47 

numbed with cold. Near them, on the wet grass, 
at the spot where they slaughtered the heifer, is 
a great stain of blood, that the rain has not 
washed away. I approach the group ; an old 
tatooed woman, who tells me she is the chief's 
mother, seizes the skirt of my cloak and kisses 
it. From this moment, I feel that they have en- 
tirely gained me over to their side, and I promise 
them my intercession at the proper time. 

How gloomy this place is under such sur- 
roundings ; how melancholy and mysterious ! 
How white our tents stand out against the dark 
background ! 



IX. 



OFF we go at a gallop in the cold morning 
wind, like a fantasia, riding nearly all 
abreast, pell-mell, climbing a hill. A very pretty 
sight it is, too, to see our bright uniforms 
and the gay bournouses relieved against the 
bright green of the hill-side. No one knows 
what idea has taken possession of the three old 
negro images who lead us that they should rush 
the standard of the Sultan forward at such a 
pace, but our horses are fresh and willing to 
follow, and we are not going to hold them in. 
And it is good to awake to this hurly-burly, to 



48 Into Morocco. 

the rapid motion, to the jingling of arms, and to 
the excitement of the race through the pure air 
that no one had ever breathed before and that 
fills full our lungs. The bat-mules, which had 
first shown an inclination to keep with us, are 
soon left behind; a dozen or so of them, loaded 
with our stores, go down and roll over and over ; 
then there are shouts and shrieks from the Arabs; 
the muleteers hurry up, bournous streaming in 
the wind ; like birds of prey they fall in clouds 
upon each unlucky animal, to raise it, reload it, 
beat it. In our headlong course we catch only 
vague glimpses of these scenes, and then lose 
them from sight again. Besides, it is no affair 
of ours, nor do we let it bother us at all ; the 
baggage is sure to come up all safe at the end, 
and the chief is responsible for it all. So we 
keep on, straight ahead ; in the wind, through 
the rain, which is commencing to streak the sky, 
kt us keep to the gait of our wild Arab race. 

* * 

When v/e stop in our headlong course, the rain 
is falling in torrents and the wind is piping its 
lament in our ears We are on high, broken 
ground, in a sandy country, covered with a 
sparse growth of bracken; before us the undulat- 
ing plain stretches away in sandy knolls as far as 



Into Morocco. 49 

the eye can carry. The sand is of a golden yel- 
low and very fine ; we trot over it as noiselessly 
as we would over the tan-bark track of a riding 
school. The bracken predominates, but inter- 
mingled with it are daffodils, lavender, and 
quantities of a white flower that closely resem- 
bles a large species of eglantine. Drenched as 
they are by the rain, all these plants are delight- 
fully fresh and exhale the sweetest perfumes be- 
neath the rapid beat of our horses hoofs. 

For the succeeding two hours, we traverse a 
more cheerless country, stony and seamed with 
many a ravine, with much of the sweet-scented 
furze, covered with yellow flowers, and a few 
hawthorns here and there ; this is in turn suc- 
ceeded by a region of wild little valleys, each 
one exactly like the other, and all equally desti- 
tute of any trace of human habitation. The sky 
grows blacker and blacker, the wind shrieks more 
loudly over the heath and the rain beats in our 
faces. It reminds one of old-time Brittany, be- 
fore the days of church-spires and way-side mi- 
ages ; of pre-historic Brittany as it might appear 
in the spring time. 

Our three old ebony images, the advance 
guard, have drawn the pointed hoods of their 
cloaks up over their ears ; towering erect upon 
their small steeds, their bournouses spread out 



50 Into Morocco. 

behind in order to protect their horses' croups, 
they resemble so many baboons, when thus seen 
from behind — conical shaped baboons, broad at 
base and terminating in a sharp point. And the 
red standard, too, wliich was brand new when we 
took our departure, now hangs draggled around 
its staff, an object pitiable to look upon. 

It seems that we are about to change tribes 
and enter upon the territory of El-Araich, for 
down below there, on the crest of the hill, are a 
hundred horsemen awaiting us. They are an 
odd looking troup as seen through the blinding 
rain ; all robed in white with their hoods down, 
their thin-barreled muskets held erect, they 
neither speak nor stir. It is striking to see them 
thus, motionless as so many mummies, when we 
know that in an instant the very madness of 
motion will seize upon them, and that we shall 
see them striving to outstrip the wind in their 
headlong course, while horses' manes and tails, 
gay bournouses and disheveled turbans will be 
streaming in the air like pennons. 

From among the horsemen as they stand thus 
hooded and mummy-like, their chief advances 
to the front in order to give his hand to the 
minister. His face is regularly beautiful, sweet 
and mystical like that of a holy prophet. He 



Into Morocco. 51 

wears a pink cloth caftan and a double bournous 
of white and blue, the one draped over the other; 
his steed is a dapple gray, caparisoned with green 
embroidered with gold. His lieutenant, who rides 
at his side, contrasts with him by having a cruel 
face, a thin, little, hooked nose like a hawk. He 
wears a capuchin brown caftan and a slate- 
colored bournous, and bestrides a yellow horse 
with blue trappings. Such is the effect of light 
in this country, that even in this gloomy, rainy 
weather, these combinations of color produce an 
effect that no costume could attain to under our 
European sky. 

In spite of the rain we all have to assist at the 
great fantasia of welcome. As one man the 
horsemen throw back their hoods and put spurs 
to their horses, which bound forward madly, 
heads up. Allah ! with neighing of horses and 
shouts of men, the race has commenced, dra- 
peries stream in the wind and muskets circle in 
the air. Three-fourths of the guns miss fire be- 
neath the torrents of rain, and the chief over- 
whelms us with excuses, explaining that the pow- 
der is wet. But it is very fine and very animat- 
ing notwithstanding, perhaps even more so than 
it would be under a clear sky : the mad horse- 
men, the stinging rain and the black clouds, all 
driven by the wind in one eddying vortex. 



52 Ijito Morocco. 

In this new escort, which is to accompany us 
until to-morrow, there are to be seen looking out 
from beneath their turbans more than one pair 
of. very savage eyes. 

* * 

A halt is called of two hours for breakfast on 
a hill-top where, by some extraordinary chance, 
a village has been built. (It is owing to these 
noonday halts that each day the tents and bag- 
gage reach the end of the day's route before we 
do, and that we always find our camp pitched 
and ready for us upon our arrival.) Our people 
hastily set up the great dining tent, which, an 
exception to the rest, always travels at the same 
gait we do, keeping close in our rear. As the 
weather is cool, they also light a great fire of 
leaves and twigs of the dwarf palm, which exhales 
a balsamic odor and gives out a cloud of smoke. 

The village here, like those we saw yesterday, 
is composed of little gray thatched huts, con- 
cealed behind hedges of aloes or of great bluish 
cactus. Close at hand stands a date-palm, its top 
swaying on its slender stem high above the 
ground, the first that we have met since our de- 
parture. There is also the tomb of some holy 
marabout of great repute for piety in the sur- 
rounding country, and a white flag flying over it 



Into Morocco. 53 

serves to tell the lone traveler and the passing 
caravan that it is well for them to stop and leave 
a few pieces of money as an offering at the shrine 
of the holy man. (In Morocco there are many of 
these sacred tombs with their white flag, even in 
the most desolate regions, and the infrequent 
passer-by leaves his gift there, which is almost 
always respected by the robbers.) 

While we were breakfasting on what was left 
of last night's mouna, it cleared off with a 
celerity known only to Africa ; the sky swept 
clear of its clouds, took on again its magnificent 
transparency of blue, and the sun came out daz- 
zling. 

In this treeless country the eye is capable of 
ranging over immense distances ; moreover there 
is scarcely ever a house or a village to break this 
great green or brown monotony, so that the eye 
accustoms itself to search the extreme limits of 
the horizon, and, as on the broad expanse of the 
ocean, to discover at a glance anything out of 
the common, anything indicative of life or move- 
ment, even at distances where, in our country, 
objects would be entirely undistinguishable. If 
on some desert hillside, blue in the distance, we 
see some white points, if they are motionless, we 



54 ^^ito Morocco. 

say they are stones ; if they move, we say they 
are sheep. A coPection of reddish points indi- 
cates a herd of cattle. Finally, a long brownish 
train that keeps advancing with an incessantly 
undulating, slowly creeping movement, is, our 
eyes at once tell us, a caravan, in which we might 
even discern the camels following each other in 
file and sleepily swaying their long necks from 
side to side. 

An object, singular from its associations, that 
has followed us from Tangier, and that we have 
become accustomed to look for, sometimes 
ahead of us, sometimes behind, is the electric 
boat, of some twenty feet in length, which we 
are transporting as a gift to the Sultan. It is 
enclosed in a wooden box painted of a grayish 
color, so that it is not unlike a great block of 
granite, and it advances with difficulty, over 
mountains, across valleys, on the shoulders of 
some forty Arabs. We are familiar with simi- 
lar scenes in the Egyptian bass-reliefs, where 
we see enormous burthens like this carried by 
men with white turbans and bare legs. 

* 
* * 

Our encampment to-night is at a place called 
Tlata-Raissana, where it seems that a great fair 
is held every month for the sale of slaves and 



Into Morocco. . 55 

cattle. To-day, however, the place is a desert. 
It stands on the bank of a fresh water stream,, 
among mountains that are covered by such an 
uniform growth of bracken that they would 
seem to have been upholstered in cloth of a 
beautiful green color. As is always the case, || 

our tents are surrounded by flowers, but none 
of them are the flowers of France ; in this par- 
ticular nook, abounding in furze, species grow 
that are unknown in our territories ; extremely 
sweet, all of them, and some of them of re- 
markable color. 

Fantasias are racketing around the camp all 
the evening ; until the going down of the 
sun nothing is heard but the thundering of 
horses' hoofs, the cries of the Arabs, and the 
report of fire-arms. 

% * 

About seven o'clock the mouna makes its 
appearance in camp with the customary cere- 
monial. But it will not answer ; only eight 
sheep and the rest of it in proportion. It is 
not sufficient for an embassy ; we must refuse it 
in order to maintain the dignity of the flag. 
And this refusal constitutes a diplomatic inci- 
dent, which would have serious effects for the 
chief of the region, should the affair come to 



56 Into Morocco. 

the ears of the Sultan. The handsome chief in 
the pink robe affects surprise and consternation; 
he lays it all on the shoulders of the subordin- 
ate chiefs, who in turn shift the responsibility 
upon some other people, and these last fall 
upon the innocent shepherds and give them a 
sound beating. The whole thing, however, was 
nothing more nor less than a plot arranged 
among them all to see how far they could go 
with us ; a suitable mouna was all prepared in 
case of need, and concealed in a ravine a little 
way off. After supper, a new procession ap- 
pears by the light of the moon, bearing sixteen 
sheep, a goodly number of chickens, loaves of 
bread and jars of butter. The chiefs, apprehen- 
sive of what the minister may say, wait silently 
around his tent in the majesty of their long 
white bournouses. 

The new mouna is all that it should be, is 
accepted, and so there is an end to the incident. 



Into Morocco. 57 



X. 

Sunday, April 7th. 

UNDER a dark and lowering sky we crossed 
the first of the surrounding mountain 
ranges, clad in their smooth coats of bracken, 
and came out on vast solitudes white with 
daffodils in flower. Here and there a great 
gladiolus, or a tuft of violet colored iris, relieve 
the monotony of this great flower garden 
by their lively hues. And thus it continues 
as far as the eye can reach. Now and then a 
stork sails slowly overhead, beating the air with 
wings of black and white — or crows, or some- 
times an eagle. 

The rain hangs on. Not a living thing to be 
seen this morning ; not a group of laborers, not 
a train of asses, not a caravan. Finally a camel, 
with her young one, that has been lying hid by 
our path, comes up and watches us with inter- 
est as we pass by. The young camel, which 
cannot have been long in this world, I think, is 
so thin of neck and so small of head that any 
one a little way off would take him for a four- 
footed ostrich. In his astonishment at sight of 
us, in his youthful and timid gracefulness, he 
comes near to being pretty. 



58 Into Morocco. 

Rain, rain, torrents of rain. Our three old 
negro images, the advance guard, have drawn 
their hoods up under their eyes until more than 
ever they are like pointed baboons. The silk 
standard, which the middle image always carries 
upright as if it was a wax candle, is nothing but 
a colorless rag, torn by the wind. Water streams 
from our clothing. The Sultan's boat, still re- 
minding us of the passage of the Egyptians, gets 
forward with the greatest difficulty, the feet of 
its forty bearers sinking deep into the soaked 
ground at every step they take. 

After two hours spent thus in this meadow of 
daffodils, we notice something that resembles a 
very long crack winding through the plain, some- 
thing which can be nothing else than a river run- 
ning between deep banks. It is the Oued 
M'cazen, reputed to be difficult of passage, and 
on its bank there is a group that bodes no good; 
loaded mules by hundreds, camels, horsemen, 
footmen, all evidently halted there because the 
river is not fordable. What then are we to do ? 

The Oued, swollen by the rains, is angry and 
rapid, and rolls its turbid waters with a sullen 
roar; moreover, it is evidently very deep. It runs 
between lofty, vertical banks of clay that have 
been soaked by the rain until they have become 
slippery and dangerous. With our European ideas 



I 71 to Morocco. 59 

of travelling, it would seem to be physically im- 
possible to pass over our men, tents and baggage 
without a bridge. The chiefs think differently, 
however, and the attempt is to be made, sending 
the heavy freight over first. 

First our laboring men promptly divest them- 
selves of their bournouses, disclosing their tawny 
forms, and plunging into the cold, seething 
waters, ascertain that the depth is a scant two 
metres. With a little effort then on our part the 
crossing may be effected. 

We will make the initial attempt with some of 
the mules that are lightly loaded. By dint of 
many blows they make the passage, swimming to 
the middle of the stream, struggling an instant 
against the current which carries them away, 
then quickly regaining their footing in the mud 
of the opposite shore with loads intact, although 
thoroughly soaked in the muddy water. 

But as our ambassadorial dignity will not per- 
mit us to remove our clothing, how are we to 
pass ? And our camp beds ? And our fine gold em- 
broidered uniforms, which are to figure in our pre- 
sentation to the Sultan? A little troop of horse- 
men gallop up and signal us from the top of the op- 
posite bank. We are safe. It is a certain Chaouch, 
of Kazar-el-Kebir (a town that lies in our route), 
who comes to our assistance with a numerous fol- 



6o Into Mo7-occo. 

lowing, bringing a *'mahadia " that he has hasti- 
ly constructed for our behoof. (A mahadia is a 
great mass of reeds, compactly bound together 
with cords so as to float.) Two by two-we shall 
embark on this improvised raft, we shall be 
hauled across by a cord, and our baggage and 
camp equipage will follow in the same way, as 
dry as if in a ferry boat. 

As to the rest of our following, every one 
must swim for it, man and beast, and that quick- 
ly. The headmen rush to and fro, shout, call to 
each other in tones to split their throats, always 
using those hoarse aspirations which would lead 
one to believe they were suffocating with rage. 
" Ha 1 Caid Rhaa ! " " Ha ! Caid Abder Han- 
an ! " *' Ha ! Caid Kadour ! " And right and left 
they ply their sticks upon those who hesitate to 
make the plunge into the chill water. Resigned- 
ly the handsome Arab horsemen undress, then 
strip their horses and remount, holding their 
steeds in the grasp of their sinewy legs as in 
the grasp of a vise of bronze. On their heads, 
done up in a monumental bundle, they place 
their caftans and their bournouses , and still above 
this their high-backed saddles and their trap- 
pings of state, and to keep all in place they raise 
their arms, like the handles of a Greek amphora. 
Next all these multi-colored scaffoldings are seen 



I?ito Mo?'occo. 6 1 

advancing resolutely in the direction of the 
river, each one having for base that uncertain 
object, a rearing, restive horse, hanging down 
along the flanks of which are two bare legs; and 
all these men, burdened as they are, deprived of 
the assistance of their hands, urge their horses 
down the slippery and almost vertical bank by the 
mere pressure of the knee against the flank. The 
horses whinny with fear ; they slide down, like a 
man on skates or like one descending a toboggan 
slide, some on their feet, some on their haunches; 
and plastered with the slimy mud, with a tremen- 
dous splash, they tumble into the waters of the 
Oued, where they breast the strong current and 
scramble up the opposite bank like so many goats. 
Among them are some who stumble and, fail- 
ing to recover themselves, go down ; some of the 
horsemen, embarrassed by the weight of their 
fine bournouses and their heavy saddles, take a 
header in the river. Loaded mules are caught in 
the viscous mud and struggle frantically ; they 
are extricated by dint of shouts and blows, hor- 
ribly galled by their girths and pack-saddles, 
their flesh raw and bleeding. Our tents, so 
white but a short time since, are dragged through 
the mud. It is a strange spectacle that we be- 
hold beneath this leaden sky, in the midst of the 
grassy plain upon these banks of grayish clay, 



62 Intu Morocco. 

the bustling activity of a hundred horses and 
horsemen of all shades of color, of as many 
mules, camels, bearers and laborers. We might 
be taken for a tribe of emigrants that some sud- 
den accident has put to rout. 

Now the situation is complicated by a drove 
of cattle crossing the stream by swimming, in a 
direction opposite to ours. They are cattle with 
a mind of their own, and would much rather 
have remained on the far shore, but the Arabs 
who have charge of them resist this inclina- 
tion, swimming with one arm and beating their 
charges with the other, twisting their tails to 
force them onward, or dragging them forward 
by their horns. 

Toward the end the clay banks, worn by so 
many descents, have become as smooth as look- 
ing glasses. Then the scene becomes wilder 
still, the hurly-burly greater, the shouts louder 
and more furious ; a confused mass of terrified 
animals, naked men, baggage of every descrip- 
tion, red saddles and packages wrapped in envel- 
opes of every color of the rainbow. It is a scene 
such as must have been witnessed at the time of 
the invasion of the armies of the prophet. A 
great picture of ancient Africa, admirable for 
life and color, is this which we behold among 
these solitary plains, under this clouded sky. 



Into Morocco. 63 

At length, after shouts and blows innumerable, 
the transit is successfully accomplished, and we 
are all on the far bank with our baggage, without 
loss of life or property. Our bedding and camp 
equipage are soaked with water and smeared 
with mud, our panting mules are sadly galled ; 
as for ourselves we are only drenched with 
rain. 

The desert of daffodils and iris begins again ; 
for an hour we journey on through the monoton- 
ous landscape, lying silent and gloomy beneath 
the falling rain. Our band is increased by the 
people of Kazar-el-Kebir, who come to meet us 
under the leadership of Chaouch ; about a dozen 
mounted Arabs and as many long-haired Jews 
with great gold rings in their ears, mounted on 
asses, two by two. Kazar-el-Kebir, which will 
be our halting place to-night, is the only city be- 
tween Tangier and Fez, and Chaouch, a fine look- 
ing Arab with a purple bournous, is our consular 
agent there. If it is asked why we require a con- 
sular agent at Kazar-el-Kebir, the answer is that 
we have French "proteges" there— some twenty 
of them — as we have at Tangier and at Tetuan. 
In most of the Mussulman cities of Turkey, 
Syria and Egypt, we have these "proteges"; 
that is to say, people upon whom it is not per- 
mitted to lay hand unless with the consent given 



64 Into Morocco. 

of our legation. In Morocco, I never knew why, 
most all our proteges are Jews. 

So we jog onward across the flower enameled 
plain. Innumerable swallows skimming along 
the ground, flit between our horses' legs. Now 
and then we come across a flock of sheep. The 
shepherd or shepherdess is a little heap of grey 
wool, ending in a pointed hood, squatting among 
the grass in the rain. As we pass, the bournous 
sits up and finally rises erect on foot, to enjoy 
the astonishing spectacle of our march past. 
Then there is to be seen, beneath the rags, the 
half naked, lithe and yellow form of a child ; al- 
most in every case the face is intelligent and 
prepossessing, with very white teeth and big 
black eyes. 

Toward evening we enter a cultivated region. 
The country is uninteresting, reminding one of 
the plains of la Beauce, but on a very much 
larger scale, without houses or fences ; great 
fields of Indian corn and interminable fields of 
barley. The rich, black soil must be wonder- 
fully fertile. What a granary of abundance this 
Morocco might be made ! 

On an elevation which closes in our view in 
front, we behold something unexpected, a spec- 
tacle to which our eyes have not 'been accustomed 
for some time past — a crowd of human beings. 



Into Morocco. 65 

It is the population of Kazar-el-Kebir, come out 
to meet us, that now sways back and forth 
against the grey background of sky, all draped 
in their grey bournouses. Some are on foot, 
some are mounted, all are hooded, and they stand 
like rows of pointed shades. Already we hear 
the beating of the tambourines and the squeak- 
ing of the pipes. 

As soon as we are near enough, all the long 
muskets, loaded with powder only, are discharged 
toward us, while the musicians, in mad cres- 
cendo, emit their most ear-splitting strains. Then 
the whole array, by a flank movement, surrounds 
us, and, penetrating our lines, the two bands are 
mingled in one confused mass, the horses crowd- 
ing against and biting one another. The bold 
riders trot their horses, the footmen use their 
legs and run, their bournouses streaming in the 
wind, to avoid being ridden down- There are 
quantities of children on asses, two or three 
sometimes mounted on one beast, as if a skewer 
were run through them — a comical sight. There 
are old men with crutches who still have not 
lost the faculty of running ; there are beggars 
and idiots, and holy men singing their sacred 
songs. And the tambourinists, who are on foot, 
beat their instruments madly, frightening our 
horses. And the pipers, who are mounted on 



66 Into Morocco. 

mules and whose cheeks are distended like the 
bag of a bag-pipe, their eye-balls starting from 
their sockets, blow, blow to burst a blood-vessel, 
urging on their wayward beasts by kicks from 
their bare heels ; one of them, a rotund little 
fellow with a big head and an enormous stomach, 
mounted on a diminutive ass, might have sat for 
the picture of old Silenus. He sticks persis- 
tently at my side, pouring into my ear the yelp- 
ing notes of his pipe, sad as the voice of a jackal. 
In drawling, mournful falsetto, the men shout at 
the top of their voice : '' Hou ! May Allah 
grant victory to our Sultan Muley Hassan ! 
Hou ! " 

Excited and uneasy, our horses dance to the 
music of the tambourines, keeping time to the 
rhythm, and thus we journey on toward Kazar- 
tl-Kebir in an intoxication of sound, deafened 
by the strange music. 

* * 

Little by little Kazar, at first only dimly seen 
through the rain, reveals itself to our view. 
Placed in the middle of a plain fertile as the 
promised land, it is surrounded by groves of 
olive trees and magnificent green orange trees. 
It is not white, like the towns of the Arabs, but 
a neutral, dark tint is the prevailing one, and 



l7ito Morocco. 67 

its fifteen or twenty minarets, of a dark brown 
color, might be taken for the church spires of 
our northern cities, st) that, beneath this cloudy 
sky and across these flooded plains, we might 
think we were entering a Flemish town. It re- 
quires the few palm trees that are swaying 
gracefully on their lofty stems down yonder to 
produce in us the impression of Africa. This 
impression, however, soon becomes firmly fixed 
in our minds, as we approach the crumbling 
old ramparts and look upon the exquisite ogive 
arches of the gateway, with their surrounding 
arabesques. 

We find our poor little camp going upon a hill- 
side, about two hundred metres from the walls, 
in an abandoned cemetery where the ancient 
tombs are covered over with golden-yellow lich- 
ens. Tents, bedding, baggage are lying on the 
grass, soaking in the rain. A troupe of mounte- 
banks, unpacking their effects in a snow-storm, 
could not afford a more mournful spectacle. 

In addition to the mouna which is obliga- 
tory, we were this evening furnished, as a com- 
pliment, with several dishes ready cooked and 
hot. It is, moreover, the first appearance in 
our camp of a utensil with which, we are told, 



68 l7ito Morocco. 

we shall bee )me better acquainted at the ban- 
quets of Fez : a huge round box, surmounted 
by a covering, or I should rather say roof, of 
conical form and tapering up to a sharp point, 
constructed of esparto grass and gaily decorated 
in colors. At banquets of ceremony, the dishes 
must always be presented under this covering, 
brought in on the heads of the servants. As it 
is growing dark, ten solemn persons approach, 
decked with this extraordinary head-dress, their 
naked arms extended upward to keep it in position 
giving the effect of handles of a jug ; and with- 
out uttering a word, each deposits his burthen 
upon the grass, before the minister's tent. Be- 
neath the covering of esparto there are earthen 
vessels filled with edibles heaped up in pyra- 
mids ; a sweetened cous-couss, a salted cous- 
couss surmounted by a preparation of chicken, 
a roasted sheep, a pile of those highly spiced 
little cakes known in Morocco as " Gazelle's 
Shoes." 

And so we eat of all these dishes this even- 
ing, under our tent ; our modest little table is 
invisible beneath the huge trenchers ; it is like 
a supper with Pantagruel. With what we leave 
unconsumed, our people will keep up the feast 
until daylight ; to-morrow there will not remain 
a crumb of these heaps of victuals. No one can 



Into Morocco. 69 

imagine the gourmandizing capacity of the Arabs, 
in general so abstemious, when fate has selected 
them to be an escort to an embassy. 

XI. 

Monday, April 8th. 

THE bugle does not sound reveille this 
morning in our camp, which means that 
the rain has made us prisoners and that the 
river of Kazar-el-Kebir (the Oued Leucoutz) 
is, as we had reason to fear, unfordable. We 
arise later than usual, having slept under a wet 
tent, over the wet ground, between wet cover- 
ings. 

Already the sound of the pipes and tambour- 
ines is heard, and all the morning our camp is 
surrounded by a miscellaneous crowd of musi- 
cians, mountebanks and buffoons. Poverty strick- 
en people, men and v\^omen, also come to gather 
up from the mud of the cemetery such chicken's 
claws and half-gnawed bones as they can find, 
the debris of our last night's orgy. 

After breakfast, when the rain holds up a little, 
we mount and ride to take a look at the ford, 
that impracticable ford of the river. Under es- 
cort of our guards, and preceded always by the 
red standard, we advance toward the city, which 



70 Into Morocco. 

we shall have to traverse in the direction of its 
greatest length. (Notwithstanding the indisput- 
able warmth of our reception, notwithstanding 
presents and smiling looks, we follow the advice 
of those who are wise, which is, never to stir out 
without an escort, and never to trust one's self 
alone more than a hundred yards away from the 
tents ; this, moreover, is recommended to us by 
the Sultan himself, who fears that his Christian 
guests may suffer by the misconduct of some 
fanatics.) 

The road leading to the city is a sewer of 
liquid mud, beset with great stones and the de- 
caying carcasses of cattle. We push forward at a 
gallop, notwithstanding, since such is the custom; 
this gait is always taken in Morocco, even over 
by-roads where, with us, one would even be 
afraid to lead a horse at a walk by the bridle. 

Outside the walls which are still standing, hid- 
den among the cactus, the tall reeds and the wild 
oats, there are many ruins of the old ramparts, 
dating back to I know not what indeterminate 
epoch. Kazar-el-Kebir, of which so little is 
known at present, has a most involved history. 
In old times, it was from here that the expeditions 
of the holy war for the conquest of Spain set forth; 
some centuries later, after the fall of Granada, 
the city, after having been taken and retaken, 



Into Morocco. 71 

destroyed and rebuilt an incalculable number of 
times, fell into the hands of the Portuguese, and 
about three hundred years later, as one of the re- 
sults of the ''Battle of the three Emperors," it 
finally assumed its present status as part of the 
empire of Morocco. Since* that time it has been 
dozing and gradually wasting away among its 
delightful gardens. 

We make an entry through a series of ancient 
arched gateways, always splashing through pools 
of sticky mud, which spouts up beneath our 
horses' hoofs and makes great blotches on the 
walls. Among these rain-washed ruins, all to- 
day is dark and threatening. Every little, narrow, 
winding street is a sewer, a filthy gutter where 
horrid stenches are stirred up as we pass. Noth- 
ing animated to be seen, save people covered 
with their gray-white hoods, clothed in gray rags, 
their bare legs yellow and plastered with mud. 
They get out of our way and take refuge in door- 
ways to avoid the mud thrown by our horses' 
feet, and look at us with indifference ; their 
features, generally fine, bear an indefinable som- 
bre and close-set expression ; their minds are 
given over to following the thread of a dream of 
their ancient religion, to us entirely incompre- 
hensible. It is very evident that these people 
are not the same as those who came to meet us 



72 Ifito Morocco. 

yesterday with music in the fields ; I don't know 
whence they who gave us that welcome could have 
come, but these are scarcely curious enough to 
turn their heads to look at us. 

It is easily to be seen that this city was never 
built by the Arabs ; it is not white, and its slop- 
ing roofs are covered with tiles. The buildings 
are of a dark gray, concealed in spots by patches 
of yellow lichen, and the whole gives an impres- 
sion of extreme antiquity in decay. The Portu- 
guese were the builders, and the Arabs, when 
they came in, found all as it is now, except that 
here and there they have cut through their inimit- 
able ogives and their portals rich in lace-work 
carving. They have also erected their mosques, 
their great square towers where prayers are 
chanted, and the lofty minarets, roosting places 
for the motionless storks. But as white-wash 
would not hold without a glaze on these foreign 
built walls, the original color has been allowed 
to remain undisturbed. 

In the bazaar, which is roofed over and ex- 
tremely dark, the passages are so narrow that our 
horses catch against the boot'ns. The merchants, 
in white robes and white turbans, squatting in 
their narrow shops, have no apparent connection 



Into Morocco. 73 

with the cominerce of this world, and do not 
seem to care for customers. Their stock in trade 
consists chiefly of manufactured leather in var- 
ious forms, ornamented horse-trappings, and 
highly colored articles made of esparto grass, 
which hang from the beams in all directions 
like charms at the end of a watch-chain, and are 
shaken by the wind. 

Then comes the Jews' quarter, as large at least 
as that of the Arabs. Here we might imagine 
ourselves to be in Turkey, in Syria or in Egypt 
equally as in Morocco ; in all Mussulman coun- 
tries the Jews are alike ; their faces, their dress, 
their houses are copied, as near as may be, from 
invariable models. 

We leave the city by other archways, which, 
though falling into ruin, are still enchanting by 
their beauty of form and by the airy grace of the 
carved work that enframes them. And before 
us is the river, the Oued Leucoutz, (the old Leu- 
cus of the Romans). It is broader than the one 
which we passed yesterday, and the banks are 
higher ; its muddy stream rolls rapidly by with 
an ugly roar. Some of our people undress and 
dive to ascertain its depth ; three to four metres! 
Nothing can be done to-day. It seems that there 
is an old ferry boat somewhere in the neighbor- 
hood, and it is to be repaired and brought 



74 Into Morocco. 

hither without delay. We will return to the 
city where v/e have invitations to two colla- 
tions, one at Chaouch's and the other at the 
house of a certain scherif^ whose father was 
court-jester and favorite of a Sultan before the 
present one. 

The receptions at the two houses do not differ 
greatly from eacli other. Dismounting in front 
of the little scalloped gateway, cut deep into the 
lofty crumbling wall and so narrow that it scarcely 
seems to open at all, we are introduced into the 
interior court, which is collonaded, and paved 
and wainscotted in mosaic. First we are 
sprinkled with rose-water from long-necked ves- 
sels of silver ; the attendants dash it in our faces 
as if it was a scourge ; next pieces of a very ex- 
pensive East Indian wood are lighted in a censer 
to honor us, producing a dense odoriferous 
smoke ; then we are offered '' Gazelle's shoes " 
on immense plates, and tea in tiny cups, as in 
China. The tea is made in silver samovars on 
the floor, and is very sweet and highly spiced with 
mint, anise seed and cinnnamon. Coffee is 
hardly ever taken in Morocco ; tea at all times 
and in all places. England supplies it, as well 
as the samovars in which it is made and the cnps 
in which it is drunk. English ships tlirow these 
goods in large quantities into the open ports, 



Into Morocco. 75 

whence caravans distribute them to the remotest 

regions of Moghreb. 

The reception of the Scherif, the court jester's 
son, however, seemed to me a little the finer of 
the two, as did also his house, his old tumble- 
down dwelling, rich in mosaics and resplendent 
with whitewash. There is something about his 
personality that is strange and attractive. Over 
his wild and intelligent features there plays a 
constant expression of mystic meaning ; when- 
ever a compliment is paid him, he folds his hands 
upon his breast after the manner of the pictures 
of the early saints and lowers his head with the 
smile of a young girl. 

I linger with him upon the terrace on his 
house-top, which is as large as a' public square 
and fissured and cut up by sun and storm ; its 
rough places have all been made smooth by the 
coats of whitewash that have been accumulating 
for centuries ; it is surrounded by a crenellated 
wall in which are cut narrow loop-holes so as to 
give an outlook while the observer remains un- 
seen. It is the highest terrace in the city, of 
which it overlooks every quarter ; only the stern 
old towers of the mosques, with their motionless 
storks, rise higher in the air. Although not in 
accordance with custom, he tells me that he 
passes the greater part of his time here, and 



76 Into Morocco. 

especially the summer evenings. He was expelled 
from Fez for political reasons while he was still 
a child, and has no hope of ever being recalled 
from this residence of Kazar-el-Kebir which the 
.Sultan has assigned him as his place of exile. 
He devotes his time to the study of science and 
philosophy, such, no doubt, as they were taught 
in the middle ages, from rare old Arabic manu- 
scripts, where divination and alchemy hold an 
important place. 

There are three of us walking gravely up and 
down the lofty terrace ; the Scherif, robed all in 
white, Chaouch in a long violet caftan, and 
myself, who in some way feel uncomfortable 
in thus inflicting a blemish upon this imme- 
morial picture, which, were it not for me, might 
be dated back to the year 1000 or 1200. I 
reflect upon the depths of tranquility and mys- 
ticism which must distinguish the ideas and 
feelings of this scherif from those of a monsieur 
fresh from the boulevard ; I try to picture in 
my mind what may be his cloistered life, his 
dreams, his hopes, and I envy him the summer 
evenings that he tells me of, passed in looking 
down upon all the other terraces of the dead 
city, in listening to the chanting of prayers, in 
trying to fathom the distant wilderness of the 
plain and the surrounding mountains, and in 



Into Morocco. 77 

watching the caravans as they creep along the 
narrow roads where wheels have never passed. 

* * 

On our return to the camp, splashed from 
head to foot with the stinking mud of the gut- 
ters and by-ways, we find our tents more than 
ever beset by the rag-tag of Kazar. There is 
the whole array of fortune-tellers and legless 
beggars who have dragged themselves hither 
through the mud on their stumps, in the hope 
of gathering in their small harvest of bronze 
floucs (petty coins with the impress of Sol- 
omon's seal, about seven of which go to a sou). 
There are old women, too, half naked, down 
on their four paws under our mules, scratching 
the ground with their long claws and picking 
up the unconsumed grains of oats and barley. 



78 Into Mon 



XII. 



Tuesday, April 9th. 

THERE was heavy rain and a high wind 
during the whole night. There is not a 
dry th;ead under our tents. Once more reveille 
sounds beneath a lowering sky. We mount, 
however, resolved to cross the river and con- 
tinue our journey at all risks. We shall again 
have to pass through Kazar, with our entire 
escort of camels and mules ; again we shall have 
to pass the scalloped gateway, wind among the 
dark and tortuous lanes, and stir up the vile filth 
of the gutters as our horses splash through them. 

At the exit-gate on the far side of the city, 
an old woman who thinks that we will not 
understand her words begs from us while pre- 
tending to pray for the success of our journey, 
and, as she stretches out her hand to receive 
our alms, she howls : '' God's curse be on your 
religion ! Curses ! Curses on you ! " She rocks 
back and forth, keeping time to the rhythm of 
her words, just like an old pauper saying her 
prayers, and her shrill, mocking voice rises 
louder and louder, following us as we pass 
on beyond her. 

We make a long circuit among gardens and 



Into Morocco. 79 

orchards, in order to reach the river at a more 
convenient point, where the boat, which has 
been put in repair, awaits us. What wonderful 
gardens ! The orange groves, perfuming the 
air around, and the palm trees, and the great 
cacti, large as trees almost, with their blue-green 
leaves ; and the red geraniums, and the pome- 
granates, and the figs, and the olive trees ; all 
clad in the beautiful, fresh green livery of spring, 
the tender green of April. In the redundant 
exuberance of this vegetation, we find European 
plants intermingled with those of Africa ; among 
the aloes there are the tall blue borage covered 
with a profusion of blossoms, the acanthus, its 
green leaves specked witli white and growing 
in clumps to the height of eight or ten feet ; 
the hemlocks and the fennels rise above our 
horses' heads, and the old walls are clothed 
with bind-weed and periwinkles. 

As we turn and look over the tops of the 
trees, we behold the gray towers of the mosques 
growing dim in the distance ; in this enchanted 
grove their summits, which seem to rear them- 
selves in order to give us a parting glance, serve 
to strengthen in our minds the stern, cheerless 
impression which we have received of Islam. 
And the bridle-paths along which we pursue 
our way are filthy cesspools, of which nothing in 



8o Into Morocco. 

our country can give an idea ; our horses sink 
above their knees in a kind of slab-broth ; every 
now and then they stumble over the skull of an 
ox or the carcass of a dead dog, and at every 
step, flop, flop, the black mud spurts over us 
in great streams. 

Orioles and finches are singing loudly among 
the branches, and storks come and perch on one 
foot in the tree-tops to see us pass. Here and 
there, giving access to these shady retreats, 
are ancient, narrow ogive gateways, surrounded 
with their carvings of scallops and stalactites, 
exquisite even in their mouldering decay, beneath 
their shroud of whitewash, with their crowns of 
trailing roses or red geraniums. Over all the 
orange trees lift their great masses of Avhite 
blooms and fill all the surrounding air with their 
delicious perfume. 

The stream of the Leucoutz rolls along no less 
rapidly than yesterday ; the river seems even to 
have increased in volume. The boat, however, 
has been patched up and is here, and we will 
cross in instalments, as at Oued M' Kazan, leav- 
ing most of our people and all our animals to 
swim over. A crowd has followed us out of the 
city, especially the Jewish portion, who have no 



Iiito Morocco. 8 1 

feeling against us. The summit of the bank is 
soon crowded with human heads peering above 
the rushes, while the children climb the trees in 
order to get a better view. Then the drama be- 
gins ; our escort starts a row which, moderate at 
first, increases rapidly, and becoming general, 
assumes a pitch of frenzy. 

In order to load the boat, which has to make 
a countless number of trips, these shouts and 
blows and fisticuffs cannot be dispensed with. 
And at last when the work is finished and the 
boat is. loaded with its animate and inanimate 
cargo and the chief, by dint of furious impreca- 
tions, has succeeded in getting it pushed away 
from the shore, all the men who are in it, appar- 
ently from the necessity of exercising their lungs, 
strike up a prolonged howl of another descrip- 
tion, in unison this time ; something like a shout 
of triumph, as if to say : " We are off, we are 
afloat ! " 

The horses hang back ; they cannot see the 
fun of taking a plunge into the cold, swift stream. 
The camels, too, wave their long necks, and 
grunt and groan. Above all, the mules, who are 
by nature headstrong, will none of it. Some- 
times eight or ten Arabs will fall upon a single 
obstinate brute, who throws back his ears, brays 
and kicks, his back all raw and bloody where it 



82 Into Morocco. 

has been galled by the pack-saddle. 'I'he blows 
fall thick and fast on the poor beast's ribs, which 
resound under the clubs like a drum. 

* 

On the far bank, escorted by a hundred horse- 
men, with sword by side and musket on shoulder, 
we re-form our long column among the luxuriant 
wheat and barley, which carpet the earth with a 
green so vivid as to seem unnatural. We trample 
the beautiful vegetation under foot, but that 
matters little in Morocco, where there is plenty 
and to spare ; wheat brings three francs a quintal, 
and every one looks upon it as an article of no 
importance ; if people only knew enough to store 
away the harvests at the proper season, there 
would be no starving ones in Morocco, and the 
poor old women would not have to come and 
pick up the grain spilled by the mules, as I saw 
them do yesterday. The sun has come out 
scorching ; the weather has changed sharply to 
stifling heat, under a sky with great blue rifts in 
it. Kazar-el-Kebir recedes in the distance, with 
its orange groves, its delightful gardens, its mud, 
its stinks and its sweet odors. 

About noon we again find ourselves in a wild 
solitary region, and the breakfast-tent is set up 
in a charming spot that is absolutely redolent 



Into Morocco. 83 

with perfume. It is at the bottom of a fresh 
green valley that has no name, where springs are 
gushing on every side from amongmoss-covered 
rocks, and where cool clear little brooks meander 
among the myosotis, the cresses and the water 
anemones. The sky, now entirely blue, is won- 
derfully clear ; it brings to mind our noontides 
of the month of June at mowing time. There 
is still a dearth of trees, but this is atoned for by 
the carpet of flowers ; as far as the eye can reach, 
the plain is an incomparable medley of color; but 
the expression " carpet of flowers," has been so 
abused by application to ordinary meadows that it 
loses its force here. There are belts that are abso- 
lutely pink with great broad mallows; patches 
white as snow with daisies ; broad stripes of 
resplendent yellow where the buttercups are. 
Never in any bed, nor in any artificial basket in an 
English garden, have I seen such a luxuriance of 
flowers, such a crowding together of those of the 
same species, producing a combination of such 
brilliant colors. The Arabs must have drawn 
their inspiration from their lonely prairies when 
they designed their high grade carpets, variegat- 
ed with such fresh and striking shades of color, 
which are manufactured at R'bat and Mogadon 
The hills, where the ground is drier, are decked 
out in a different dress ; that is where the wild 



84 Into Morocco. 

lavender grows, the plants of which are so thick 
and bloom so to the exclusion of all other flow- 
ers that the ground is absolutely of a violet color, 
of a sort of ash-colored, grayish violet ; the hills 
appear to be covered with plush of a very sub- 
dued tint, and the contrast with the blazing dis- 
play of the plains is singular. When the laven- 
der plants are crushed beneath our feet, a strong 
and healthy odor is disengaged from the broken 
stalks, and fills our garments and pervades the 
air. And there are thousands upon thousands 
of butterflies, beetles and flies and every sort of 
little things with wings, which are flying about, 
buzzing and getting drunk on the light and the 
sweet smells. In our paler lands, or in tropical 
countries where the heat is enervating, there is 
nothing that can equal the bright splendor of 
such a springtime. 

* 

At the commencement of our alCternoon's 
march we come again upon the region of the 
white daffodils, and they remain with us until 
evening. 

About ten o'clock we leave the territory of 
El-Araich and enter upon that of Sefiann. As 
in every case, two or three hundred horsemen 
are awaiting us on the boundary of the new tribe, 



Into Moi'occo. 85 

drawn up in line, their muskets erect and glit- 
tering in the sun. As soon as they are sighted, 
the men who have escorted us from Kazar gallop 
forward and form in line facing them, where- 
upon we defile between the two columns, and 
as we pass them the men wheel to right and 
left, the two ranks close up, are united and fol- 
low in our train. 

The spot where this manoeuvre takes place 
is^ as usual, gay with flowers ; flowery as the 
most wonderful garden. Here and there the 
tall red gladiolus and the great violet iris are 
seen among the stalks of the daffodils. Our 
horses are breast high in flowers ; we might ex- 
tend our arms and pluck great bunches of them 
without dismounting. And the entire plain 
answers to this description ; no vestige any- 
where of human life, surrounded at the horizon 
by a belt of wild-looking mountains. The long 
stalks of these flowers give a faint sound as we 
pass, like the rustling of silk. 

The sky is overcast again, but only with a 
light haze, a web of light fleecy clouds of a 
delicate gray, which seem to have mounted high 
into the ether. After the dark, heavy, low-lying 
clouds, which for days poured down upon our 
heads their never ceasing showers, it is delight- 
ful to ride beneath this reposeful dome, which 



S6 Into Morocco. 

transmits to us a softened light and still leaves 
the horizon clear and distinct. The distant 
hues of the great garden in which we are jour- 
neying this evening have all tlie delicacy of an 
Eden. 

There are incessant fantasias all along our 
route, which last for two hours yet. First all the 
horsemen dash forward, two or three hundred 
at once, and a strange spectacle they present as 
seen from the rear, their hoods running up to an 
acute point and their white forms beneath their 
streaming bournouses ; from where we are we 
cannot see their horses, which are lost to sight 
among the tall grass and flowers, so that it is 
difficult to account for these long-veiled gentry, 
flying with the speed of a dream ; and then 
this subdued spring sky and all these white robes 
among the white flowers produce an indefinable 
impression of religious ceremonial, of ^' Month 
of Mary." Suddenly they turn back, all together; 
then the bronzed faces of the men, and the wild 
heads of the horses, and the gaudy colors of 
robes and saddles, all become visible. At a 
hoarse command given by their chief they re- 
turn and bear down upon us at the top of their 
infernal galop — Brrr ! . . . . Brrr ! They pass 
on both sides of our column, standing up erect 
in their stirrups, giving free rein to their excited 



Into Morocco. 87 

steeds, twirling their muskets in the air, their 
long bare arms escaping from their bournouses, 
which float upon the wind. And each man of 
every squad shouts his war-cry, fires his weapon 
and throws it up and catches it with one hand 
in his rapid course. We have scarcely time to 
glance at them when others follow close on 
their heels, then more, and still more of them, 
like the unending processions that we see in a 
theatre. Brrr ! . . . . Brrr ! . . . . they pass with 
a noise like thunder, always with the same 
hoarse cries, with the same sound of the daffo- 
dils broken and crushed as if under the breath 
of a white squall. 

* * 

These men of Sefiann are by far the hand- 
somest and the most numerous of all the tribes 
that we have encountered since we left Tangier. 
Our encampment to-night will be near the resi- 
dence of their chief, Ben-Aouda by name, whose 
little stronghold we can see down yonder in 
the flowering desert, surrounded by a grove of 
orange trees. Our tents are already pitched 
ihere, in a circle as usual, upon an elevated 
plain, a sort of esplanade overlooking the un- 
inhabited wastes, where the grass grows thicV 
and fine. A hedge of prickly-pears, as high as 



88 Into Morocco. 

trees, surrounds the camp like the enclosure of 
a park. 

Ben-Aouda's tnouna is magnificent ; it is laid 
at the feet of the minister by the usual array of 
grave, white-robed Bedouins. There are twenty 
sheep, countless chickens, jars containing a 
thousand and one things, a loaf of sugar for each 
of us, and, bringing up the rear, four great bun- 
dles of wood for our fires. (In this country 
where there are no trees, this gift of wood is 
quite a royal one.) And as if this was too little, 
along toward eight o'clock we see another 
procession advancing slowly and silently in the 
bright, blue moonlight ; other fifty white shroud- 
ed figures, bearing on their heads those great 
objects in esparto grass that I have already 
mentioned, which resemble nothing so much as 
little pointed turrets ; in them are fifty dishes of 
cous-couss, piled up in pyramids, all cooked and 
ready, hot and hot. So sleepy that I can scarce- 
ly keep my eyes open, I am about to retreat to 
my tent when this concluding tableau of the day 
falls upon my sight, as if seen indistinctly 
through a veil ; the fifty dishes of cous-couss 
placed upon the grass in a perfect circle, we in 
the center ; around them the fifty bearers, form- 
ing a second circle, in position as if to join hands 
and dance a reel, but always maintaining their 



Into Morocco. 89 

imperturbable gravity in their long white gar- 
ments ; still beyond, our white tents, forming a 
third and more remote circle, and beyond that, 
surrounding and enwrapping all, the grand hori- 
zon, dim and blue in the far distance. And ex- 
actly above us in the center of the heavens, the 
moon, a pale ghostlike kind of moon, with a 
great white halo around it, seems to be the reflec- 
tion in the sky of all these round things on 
earth. 

I am lulled to sleep by the song of the guards, 
who have orders to be more than usually on the 
alert to-night against nocturnal attacks. As the 
sound of their voices dies away and is lost in the 
silence of the untenanted plain, there come back 
in response the low cries of the jackals, the first 
that we have heard since our entry into Morocco ; 
not very much to speak of, is it ? Only two or 
three low stifled cries, as if to say ; we are here ; 
but there is something so mysteriously mournful 
in it that we feel the very marrow chilled in our 
bones at the announcement of their presence. 

* 
* * 

Beneath the tents sleep, while asserting its 
full power over us, is still not heavy ; it is very 
restful and still checkered with dreams ; dreams 
which are rather the furtive recollection of 



90 Into Morocco. 

physical sensations and very incomplete, such as 
the dreams of animals must be. Brrr! there is a 
sound like the faint echo of a flight of Arab 
horsemen meeting you in the night, or perhaps 
you have the impression of flying over the 
ground on a gallop, the recollection and the 
consequence of some scamper that you have had 
during the day, or the arm quickly stiffens it- 
self in the instinctive motion of holding up a 
stumbling horse. While these confused memo- 
ries of animal life are passing through your 
brain, the cool pure air from out-doors is blowing 
in upon you, and the night's slumbers, commenc- 
ing very early, generally end with the break of 
early day. 

XIII. 

Wednesday, April loth. 

I AM am awakened by cries, fearful cries at my 
very bedside, a kind of rattling that seems 
to proceed from the windpipe of some unclean 
thing that is bursting with rage. It is already 
day, alas ! and soon the bugle will sound, for I 
can see the dark forms of those outside my tent 
reproduced in shadow on the canvas, through 
which the golden light is streaming. The rays 
of the rising sun also produce for my benefit a 
profile of the brute that is uttering these villan- 



Into Morocco. 91 

ous cries ; a long, long neck which writhes back 
and forth like a snake, a small fiat head with 
pendant lips : a camel ! I had recognized him 
at once by the sound of his horrid voice. Some 
fool of a camel who is either restive or in trouble. 
I follow the movements of the shadow on the 
tent wall with extreme uneasiness. Ah ! It is 
all over, the mischief is done ; he has got his 
feet tangled in my tent ropes and now he is 
plunging and crying louder than ever, shaking 
the whole edifice, which will certainly tumble 
about my ears. At last the driver comes run- 
ning up with his call : "Ts ! Ts ! Ts ! " (This 
is what they say to the camels when they want 
to quiet them, and the brutes generally yield to 
the argument.) Again : " Ts ! Ts ! Ts ! " He 
quiets down and goes his way. My tent 
is safe, and I snatch a few moments more 
sleep. 

Loud and gay, the bugle for reveille ! Our 
customary hurried toilette follows, then break- 
fast on black bread and mouna butter, full of 
red cows' hairs and all uncleanness. While this 
is going on, the camp is dismantled, then the 
call for boots and saddles, and away ! 

Our flowery carpet this morning consists at 
first of large blue volubilis, interspersed with red 
anemones. Then come sandy plains, where only^ 



92 Into Morocco. 

a few scorched, dwarfed daffodils are to be seen; 
yellowish expanses which commence to take on ? 
Saharan aspect. 

We are approaching a place called Seguedla, 
where every Wednesday a great market is held, 
even more resorted to than that of Tlata-Rais- 
sona, by which we passed day before yesterday ; 
it is visited, it seems, by people within a circuit 
of eight or ten leagues. In the distance, in fact, 
in the midst of this landscape where there are 
no villages, no houses, no trees, down yonder in 
the distance, two or three low hills are seen, cov- 
ered with a coating of grayish objects which look 
like heaps of stones, but which have motion and 
emit a murmuring sound : it is a dense and com- 
pact throng, ten thousand people, may be, all 
clad in long gray robes and cowls lowered upon 
their necks ; a closely compacted crowd of one 
uniform neutral tint, such as the pebbles of the 
brook, or dry bones, might be. We are reminded 
of those primitive gatherings, composed of no- 
mads to whom it is indifferent whether they be 
here or there ; of those multitudes which fol- 
lowed the prophets through the deserts of Ju- 
dea or of Arabia. 

Our approach is signaled from a distance ; 
forthwith the assemblage is stirred by a great 
movement and a murmur of curiosity arises from 



Into Morocco. 93 

the throng ; all the yellowish points which top the 
bundles of gray wool and stand for human faces 
are turned in our direction. Then, with an out- 
burst of irresistible curiosity, the entire mass 
wavers, breaks, runs, and finally throws itself 
upon our liorses and surrounds us. We have 
great difficulty in advancing, and our Arab 
guards only succeed by dint of repeated blows 
of sticks, straps and butts of muskets in driving 
off this mob, which opens for our passage with 
shrieks and howls. We are now in the very cen- 
tre of the turmoil ; interspersed among the hu- 
man beings, who scarcely trouble themselves to 
move to make way for us, are kneeling camels 
and sleeping mules, which do not trouble them- 
selves to move at all. There are all sorts of 
ridiculous commodities exposed upon the ground 
on rush-mats ; there is an infinite number of 
small, low tents, beneath which spices, saffron, 
jujube, and dyes for the wool of sheep and for 
ladies' finger-nails are offered for sale; there are 
repulsive butcher-shops, in front of which, on 
wooden frameworks, hang the carcasses of ani- 
mals that have been stripped of their skins, to- 
gether with dark and malodorous refuse of every 
description, the lungs and entrails of beasts; there 
are also horses and cattle for sale on the hoof, 
and slaves are auctioned off to the highest bidder. 



94 I'^to Morocco. 

In every direction are heard the little bells of 
the water-sellers, who carry their merchandise 
on their backs in great leathern bottles on which 
the hair still remains, and who give every one a 
chance to drink from the same glass at the cost 
of 2, floiic (the seventh of a sou). And old wo- 
men, with scarcely a rag to their back, display 
those scraps of white cloth attached to long 
staves, which in Morocco serve as the badge of 
mendicity. 

The chiefs who are responsible for our safety 
charge us to keep close together and not to sepa- 
rate from one another by so much as a horse's 
length. They doubtless have their reasons for 
this, but there does not seem to be any ill-will in 
the curiosity about us. It is even true that when 
the first outbreak of the tumult has quieted down, 
some women having struck up their shrill "you ! 
you ! you ! " in our honor, the cry at once spreads 
and runs like a train of lighted gunpowder into 
the remote parts of the market. "You ! you ! 
you ! " As we draw off, the whole excited mul- 
titude join in the piercing, persistent chorus, 
which grows fainter and fainter as we recede, 
like the cries that we hear from the locusts when 
they are warmed by the July sun. 

We soon lose sight of the thousands of bour- 
nouses and human faces behind the undulations 




>^i«i: 



I?ito Morocco. 95 

of this uneven sandy plain. We again enter upon 
a lonely country. The landscape becomes more 
and more level, and the lofty mountains among 
which our line of march lay during the first few 
days stretch away far in our rear, and the hori- 
zon to our front becomes more and more monot- 
onous. 

Spirited fantasias continue to pass, tempest- 
like, on the flanks of our column, with wild cries 
and discharges of musketry, the rider's bour- 
nouses and the manes and tails of the horses 
streaming behind them. We scarcely pay them 
any attention now, except to get out of their way 
when we hear thera coming. And yet they are 
even more astounding than before ; the display 
would not be unworthy of a first class circus. 
Men pass us with the speed of a flash, standing 
erect upon their saddles, or standing on their 
heads with their legs waving in the air, like 
circus-riders practising in the open country ; 
two horsemen make for each other at a mad gal- 
lop, and, as they meet, without drawing rein or 
coming in collision, exchange muskets and give 
each other a kiss. An old gray-bearded chief 
proudly calls our attention to a squad of twelve 
horsemen who charge down on us abreast, and 
such handsome fellows they are ! They are 
his twelve sons. He wants us to tell the min- 



g6 Into Morocco. 

ister of it, and that the whole world should 
know how blessed he is. 

We come to a river which we pass by fording; 
it is the boundary of the territory of Sefiann. 
We are about to enter the lands of the tribe of 
Beni-Malek, whose chief is awaiting us with two 
hundred horsemen on the far bank of the stream. 
He is the Caid Abassi, one of the Sultan's prime 
favorites, an old man with an extremely intelli- 
gent and diplomatic countenance, whose daugh- 
ter it seems, was married at Fez, with splendid 
ceremonial, to the Grand Vizier. It has been 
determined to stop with him on account of his 
^^ mouna,'' for which he has a reputation far and 
wide throughout Morocco. 

The country continues to grow more level 
and the mountains to vanish in the distance. 
Nothing but sand and daffodils. Our horizon is 
gradually transformed into a long straight line, 
level as the sea, and seems to stretch away to a 
more and more remote distance. 

Toward noon a halt is called for breakfast at 
the village of this Caid. It resembles all other 
villages in Morocco. The huts of dried mud are 
low and thatched with reeds, and surrounded by 
thorny hedges of bluish cactus. Storks have 



l7ito Morocco. 97 

built their nests on every roof, and the chirp of 
the grasshopper is heard everywhere from the 
surrounding fields. 

After having breakfasted from the huge pyra- 
mids of cous-couss, which almost fill our tent, 
we receive an invitation from the Caid to take 
tea with him. His dwelling is the only one in 
the surrounding country that is built of stone. 
It is surrounded like a citadel by a series of low, 
very old brick ramparts that have been glazed 
with a yellowish wash, and formidable hedges of 
cactus further combine to render it almost in- 
accessible. Three Moorish arcades, whitewashed, 
serve as a means of access to an interior garden 
that is filled with orange trees. The trees are 
all in bloom, and the garden is sweet with a 
most delicious perfume. Notwithstanding this, 
however, the wild grass that overruns it and its 
air of abandonment give it a gloomy aspect, 
shut in as it is by the old walls, while the sur- 
rounding space is so untraiumeled, so vast and 
free. 

We are received in an apartment opening on 
this cheerless garden, where there is but little 
furniture ; the walls are whitewashed and there 
are some rugs and cushions on the floor. There 
is a tesselated pavement with a deep opening 
in it where are thrown the rinsings of the tea- 



98 Into Morocco. 

cups and the hot water that is left in the 
Samovars. In the wall at the lower end of the 
room there are other openings, like loop-holes, 
from which the women observe us as we sip 
our tea. 

We mount again at about two o'clock to con- 
tinue our march to the Sebou ; one of the 
largest rivers of Morocco and even of western 
Africa, which it is our expectation to cross this 
evening. 

On the plain in front of us we discern a group 
of men like supplicants of ancient times, drag- 
ging a diminutive ox along by its horns. Just 
as the minister passes a sword flashes from its 
scabbard ; it requires but two strokes to do 
the deed ; the animal is ham-strung and sinks 
down in a pool of its own blood, turning full 
upon us its poor, piteous eyes. What adepts 
these people must be at chopping off heads ! 
The sacrifice accomplished, the supplicants lay 
their petition in writing at the feet of the min- 
ister ; it is an old-time history of great length, 
running back I can't tell how many years, 
abounding with family jealousies, with mys- 
terious murders, with all sorts of things incapa- 
ble of unravelment. It will go to swell the 



Into Morocco. 99 

number of complications that will have to be 
adjusted at Fez with the cooperation of the 
Grand Vizier. 

* * 

The Sebou is invisible until we are close upon 
it. The stream, wide as the Seine at Rouen, 
pours its turbid waters along a deep bed be- 
tween walls of grayish clay, and pursues its 
winding way through the plain that is as bound- 
less as the sea. 

Our camp has continued to move onward 
during our noonday halt, and is now awaiting 
us on the opposite bank. We make the passage, 
which requires several trips, in two boats, to the 
accompaniment of great uproar. The neighbor- 
hood is blockaded by caravans that have been 
delayed for two hours past by the passage of 
our tents and baggage, and the spot for the 
time being has assumed a very animated appear- 
ance. 

A sharp line of demarcation is drawn by the 
Sebou between the Morocco which lies on this 
side of it and that which lies beyond it. As 
soon as it is crossed there is an impression of 
being still more widely separated from our own 
world ; of being more deeply buried in the 
gloomy Moghreb. We are still in the country 



loo Into Morocco. 

of the Beni-Malek, but we are fast approaching 
the lands of the Beni-Hassem, a dangerous tribe 
of robbers. It is an adage among travelers in 
Morocco that, the Sebou once crossed, one must 
keep a sharp eye out and maintain a watchful 
guard. 

On the bank where we now land, the nature 
of the soil and the vegetation has undergone a 
complete change ; in place of sand and daffo- 
dils, we are surprised to find a rich, black soil 
like that of the plains of Normandy, covered 
with a thick growth of colza, marigolds and mal- 
lows ; our horses wade up to their knees through 
the thick-set, luxuriant mass of verdure. 

The sun goes down in a cold, clear light. 
The landscape is almost like a marine picture, 
so level are the unbroken horizon lines. A tran- 
quil sea is not smoother than this wild plain, 
which extends nearly forty miles in breadth. In 
one direction only does a chain of far distant 
mountains, rearing their summits above the 
grassy waste, stand out against the sky like a 
wreath of raw, cold blue. The plain beyond is 
absolutely yellow with flowers, a bright golden 
yellow, while the heavens, quite free from clouds 
and reaching, void and empty, toward infinity, 
are of a pale yellowish green. 

And now the wind, which always blows up 



Into Morocco. loi 

cold at the approach of night, rises over these 
steppes of mallows and marigolds ; it sends a 
shiver through us after the fierce heat of the 
day ; it brings a melancholy feeling of winter 
to us in this place where, for miles and miles 
around, we could not find a fireside at which to 
warm ourselves. It is the most disagreeable en- 
campment that we have experienced since we set 
out. These marigolds and. mallows form a deep 
mass of thicket underneath our tents, which is 
annoying and troublesome ; it is as if we should 
lie down and try to sleep in the middle of a 
flower-bed. It is useless to try to tread them 
down ; they pretend to allow themselves to be 
crushed, sending out a penetrating odor, then- 
they resolutely arise and spring up again, bulg- 
ing out the carpet and the mats. They exhale 
an excessive humidity. Worst of all, they are 
the harboring place for bugs, grasshoppers, 
crickets and snails, which come forth and crawl 
over us all night long. 



I02 Into Morocco. 



XIV. 



Thursday, April nth. 

THE dew was heavy over night. The moist- 
ure stands in drops on the walls of my 
tent, which is filled with a thick steam and the 
acrid odor of the marigolds. 

The guard was singing around the camp until 
daylight in order to keep themselves awake. 
When the day began to break their voices gave 
way to those of the quails, calling to each other 
among the grass. Camp broken at six o'clock, 
in the saddle at seven. 

We at first advance into the great plain under 
the escort of our friends of yesterday, the Beni- 
Maleks, to the number of two hundred. The 
air seems to be warmer here on the southern 
bank of the river, and the country even more 
inhospitable. Over the boundless stretches of 
colzas and marigolds, the sky hangs dark 
and heavy, with here and there a rift of intense 
blue. Then we come to a region that is all 
white, for miles on miles, with camomile flowers, 
which we crush as we pass over them, and which 
cause our horses to smell of them all day. 

After a two hours' march, we meet the horse- 



Into Morocco. 103 

men of Beni-Hassem, who are awaiting us. 
They are a set of thieves, of that there can be no 
doubt ; their appearance shows plainly enough 
what they are. But they are magnificent thieves ; 
the finest bronze features that we have seen 
yet, the finest postures, the finest brawny arms, 
the finest horses. Locks of long hair escaping 
over their ears from under their turbans contri- 
bute in giving to their countenances an inde- 
scribably alarming expression. 

Their chief comes forward with a smile of wel- 
come to offer his hand to the minister. That 
we shall be perfectly safe while in his territory 
there cannot be the shadow of a doubt ; from the 
moment when he assumes the duties of our host 
he is answerable before the Sultan for our heads 
with his own. Besides, it is always better to be 
entrusted to his guard than to be merely camp- 
ers in his neighborhood ; the truth of this axiom 
is recognized in JMorocco. 

This old chief of the Beni-Hassems is a free- 
booter of a remaikable type. His snow-white 
beard, hair and eyebrows are well defined 
against his yellow, mummy-like complexion ; his 
aquiline profile is of the most supreme distinction. 
He is on a horse that is almost covered by a 
housing of peach-colored silk, while the bridle 
and harness are of pink silk, the high-peaked sad- 



I04 Into Morocco. 

die is of pink velvet and the stirrups inlaid with 
gold. He is attired in complete white, like a 
saint, in robes of rriuslin so thin as to be trans- 
parent. When he extends his arm to shake 
hands, the motion discloses a double sleeve of 
singular beauty ; first that of his shirt of white 
silken gauze, then that of his under-robe, also of 
silk and of an exquisite tint of old sea-green. 
To give things their relative proportions, one 
would expect to see the tapering fingers and old- 
time lace ruffles of some dowager marquise steal 
out from under the bournous of this old high- 
wayman. 

At a short distance farther on we find the 
reserve force of the horsemen, the handsomest 
and the richest of them, whom the wily old chief 
had posted there for the purpose of producing a 
theatrical effect by letting them loose on us like 
a hurricane at the lower end of the plain. They 
come down on us at top speed, with fierce shouts; 
admirable as seen thus from their front amid the 
smoke of their musketry, in their intoxication of 
sound and speed. Turbans become unrolled 
and stream on the air, harness breaks and guns 
are discharged. The earth crumbles under their 
horses* shoes and the black particles are thrown 
in every direction like a discharge of grape-shot 
from a cannon. 



Into Morocco. 105 

What a number of travellers they must have 
plundered in order to display such luxury ! The 
bridles and harness are all of silk, of a color 
harmonizing wonderfully with the housings 
and with the dress of the horseman ; blue, 
pink, sea green, salmon-colored, amaranth or 
jonquil-colored. The stirrups are all inlaid with 
gold. Every horse has upon his chest a sort of 
long, velvet curtain, richly embroidered in gold 
and kept in place by a large clasp of chased silver 
or of precious stones. How we look down now on 
those poor fantasias of our early days, around 
Tangier, which seemed to us then so fine ! 

The old chief's breakfast, too, is a wild one, 
like his territory, like his tribe. On the bare earth, 
on the carpet of yellow flov/ers somewhere in the 
midst of the broad plain, he offers us a repast of 
black cous-couss, with sheep roasted whole and 
served up on great wooden platters. And while we 
are using our hands to tear strips of meat from 
these monster roasts, supplicants again come and 
kill a ram before our minister, and the grass around 
us is streaming with the animal's blood. 



All the afternoon the plain lies before us, level 
and monotonous, as we toil onward ; it becomes 
more arid, however, toward evening, more Afri- 



io6 Into Morocco. 

can in character, and the colzas and marigolds 
give way to thorny jujubes and to various kinds 
of mint. A warm, wan light falls from the sky, 
where there are no clouds. From time to time 
the direction of the road is marked by the car- 
cass of a horse or of a camel, which the vultures 
have disemboweled. And in the occasional little 
villages which lie hidden among these desert 
wastes, the round conical hut commences to be 
seen, the hut of the Soudan, the hut of Senegal. 

We change tribes again about four o'clock, 
having had only a narrow tongue of the Beni-Has- 
sem territory to traverse. We are now coming 
among the Cherarbas, who are harmless folks 
and entirely under control of the Sultan. 
Their dangerous neighbors, however, who will 
not be answerable for us, will make our safety 
among them doubtful. 

About six o'clock we encamp, at a point where 
the roads fork to Fez and Mequinez, near the 
venerated tomb of Sidi-Gueddar, who was a saint 
of note among the Moroccans. This tomb, like 
all the Algerian marabouts and all the " Koubas" 
of Morocco, is a small square structure, sur- 
mounted by a rounded dome. It is extremely 
ancient, chinked and cracked by the weather. 
The white flag, mounted on a staff, is flying at 
its side, to intimate to caravans the meritorious- 



Into Morocco. 107 

ness of leaving offerings there ; a mat, kept in 
place by heavy stones at the corners, is laid upon 
the ground to receive them, and the coins that 
are thrown there by pious travellers are guarded 
by the birds of the air until such time as the 
priests may come and collect them. 

We are politely requested not to approach too 
closely this burial place of Sidi-Gueddar ; it is 
so holy that our presence, Christians as we are, 
would be a sacrilege. 

* * 

The mountains which this morning were 
scarcely more than blue wreaths upon the hori- 
zon, are now not more than six or eight miles 
away, and to-morrow we shall cross them ; all 
to-day they have been climbing higher, higlier 
upon the sky. . This evening we are in a region 
of lucerne, which blooms with an abundance that 
is peculiar to the flora of Morocco. There are 
little thatched villages near us ; we hear the 
barking of dogs there in the twilight, just as in 
our own farm yards, and the little hooded shep- 
herds are bringing home their flocks of goats and 
bleating sheep ; the whole gives an air of pastoral 
innocence and reassuring serenity. Moreover, 
the Fez road runs close to our camp ; so close 
indeed, that our tent ropes are stretched across 



io8 Into Morocco, 

it, and the caravans, which always jog along until 
night-fall, are obliged to turn out into the lucerne 
so as not to get their camels' feet entangled in 
the cords. And the pathway is so well beaten, 
just here, and the plain so perfectly level, that 
one might call it a real road, easy to walk on, 
and tempting one to a promenade. One must 
have lived some time in Morocco, where walking 
is everywhere difficult and even impossible, to 
understand how seductive is a road and how 
great is our longing to start off and take a stretcher 
on such a fine, mild evening. 

We must not yield to our wishes, however, and 
least of all, this evening. Strict orders have 
been issued not to go outside the bounds of the 
camp. Not only have we for neighbors the tribe 
of Beni-Hassem, but we are only distant an hour's 
travel from the mountains where dwell the ter- 
rible Zemours — fanatics, robbers, murderers, and 
for several years past in open rebellion against 
the government of Fez. Even the Sultan, when 
he travels with his camp of thirty thousand men, 
gives this country of the Zemours a wide berth. 

As the moon is coming up, after the ceremo- 
nial of receiving the inouna, double guards are 
posted around the camp and all the arms are 
loaded ; orders are given to let no one approach 
the tents, and to sing and keep the drums beat* 



Into Morocco. 



109 



ing until day-break, so as not to fall asleep. 
The chief who is responsible for us all seems 
nervous and troubled, and does not go to bed. 

XV. 

Friday, April 12th. 

ALL night long the singing and drum-beating 
were kept up, and this morning we awake 
under a cloudy sky with our heads still on our 
shoulders. As an addition to the ?nouna we are 
supplied, as we arise from our beds, with fresh 
milk in jars and excellent butter. 

We have to accomplish ten leagues to-day. 
We have scarcely made a start when a fine, cold 
rain begins to fall. It will take an hour and a 
half yet to get free of the plain, across fields of 
barley and colzas, through the lucerne where 
countless flocks of sheep are grazing. Beneath 
this cloudy sky we should think that we were in 
the rich plains of Normandy, were it not for the 
pointed huts of the villages and the bournouses 
of the shepherds. The fantasias, by which we 
continue to be honored, are not nearly so fine as 
those of Beni-Hassem ; it is to be seen that these 
honest Cherarbas are much less warlike and 
much poorer ; besides we tire of everything after 
a time, and it becomes a bore at last to have to 



no Into Mo7occo. 

turn out at every moment, the rain beating in 
our faces all the while, to make way for these 
cavaliers, who come down on us like the wind, 
fire off their guns in our faces and frighten our 
horses. 

Leaving to our right the dangerous country of 
the Zemours, we enter the mountainous region 
which we shall have to traverse with the day- 
light. The ascent is difficult, through a series 
of narrow gorges laid down in wheat and barley, 
where there is no out-look ahead. Following the 
custom of Morocco, we ruthlessly trample down 
all this vegetation ; there will still remain more 
than can be harvested. Over slopes that are 
often precipitous we stumble through the stiff 
water-soaked clay soil, so tenacious that it col- 
lects around our horses' feet ap.d forms great 
balls ; at each step we feel ourselves slipping 
back ; one after another our mules fall with 
their loads and roll with our tents, our bedding 
and our baggage in the muddy sink-holes, in 
these newly formed torrents, which are rapidly 
swelling in every direction beneath the pouring 
rain. 

The Caid of the Cherarbas left us at the 
boundary of the tribe's territory, and, what is 
very extraordinary, the chief of the region where 
we now are has not come to meet us. For the 




■w^^"^ 



Ifito Morocco. Ill 

first tiitit ne dre aione, without an escort. With 
our sinking mules and our men and horses mired 
in the heavy soil, our column now extends in a 
confused line at least a league long. What are 
we to do ? W>.ere are we to stop ? Where ob- 
tain quarters for ourselves and our beasts ? 
Where are we to look for a shelter of any kind 
in this country where there are no houses, no 
trees, where there is not even a hut where the 
people would take us in ? 

As we plod wearily on under these conditions, 
we meet a column at least as numerous as our 
own ; first a squad of horsemen, and behind, 
camels loaded with baggage and a large number 
of veiled women. It seems that it is the train of 
a chief of a distant province, who is returning 
from a visit to the Sultan. These people, too, 
like us, are inconvenienced by the heavy, slip- 
pery condition of the road. 

At last the tardy chief appears, accompanied 
by his band. He excuses himself profusely ; 
says he was in pursuit of three robber Zemours 
who have been the terror of the country. He 
has captured them and has them now in his own 
house, safely bound, from whence tliey will be 
taken to Fez to undergo the ^^ punts h7fient of the 
salt,'' as the law enjoins. 
■ As we continue our upward course through 



112 Into Morocco. 

these fearful little ravines that are like walls of 
gray clay, slipping and stumbling through the 
rain with many a stumble and fall, I make en- 
quiry about this ''^ punislwiefit of the salt,'' which 
goes back to very ancient times. 

It is the Sultan's barber who has the responsi- 
bility of administering it. The guilty one is 
brought before him in some public place, prefer- 
ably the market place, securely bound with cords. 
Taking a razor, he makes four deep incisions, 
reaching down to the bones and corresponding 
with them in direction, in the palm of each 
hand, then forcing back the fingers and sepa- 
rating as widely as possible the lips of the 
bleeding orifices, he stuffs them full of salt. 
Then he closes the mutilated hand and places 
the end of each finger within the corresponding 
one of the gaping wounds, and that this barbar- 
ous arrangement may remain intact until death 
comes to release the sufferer, he tightly sews 
over all a sort of close fitting glove of wet cow- 
skin, which will shrink and harden as it dries. 
When this is done, the criminal is returned to 
his dungeon, where he is generally supplied with 
food, in order that the torture may be protracted 
as long as possible. From the first moment of 
the punishment, to say nothing of the unspeak- 
able physical agony, he knows that this horrible 



Into Morocco, 113 

glove will never be taken off, that his fingers will 
"grow into the wound and stiffen there and never 
come forth, that there will be no living being to 
say a word of consolation to him, that neither 
day nor night will bring relief to his torments or 
end his shrieks of anguish. - But the worst of all, 
it seems, does not happen for some days, until 
the nails, growing within the hand, cut their way 
deeper and deeper into the mutilated flesh. 
Then the end is close at hand ; some die of 
tetanus, others succeed in dashing out their 
brains against the wall. 

And here I must beg that those who sit by 
their fireside and receive their humanitarian 
theories all ready-made to suit their tastes, will 
not cry out against Moroccan barbarity. In the 
first place, I will say to them that here, in the 
Moghreb, we are still in the darkness of the 
middle-ages, and God knows how fertile was 
our European middle-age imagination in invent- 
ing punishments. Then again, the Moroccans, 
as is the case with all peoples who have not ad- 
vanced beyond their primitive state, are far in- 
ferior to us in nervous susceptibility, and as they 
also look upon death with the utmost contempt, it 
follows that our guillotine would be an anodyne 
in their eyes, as much as a punishment, and 
would have no deterrent effect upon any one. 



114 Tnto Morocco. 

In a country where the distances are so great, 
and the roads entirely unguarded, one cannot 
feel very angry with this people for having put 
into their code some provisions that may give 
their mountain robbers a little food for reflec- 
tion. 

* 
* * 

After a weary climb we reach the summit of 
the range, and looking down from a clearing be- 
tween two peaks, we catch a glimpse of the plain 
lying far below us, not so extensive as that of 
the Sebou, but well cultivated and marvellously 
fertile ; a sort of circle within a circle, with a 
border of distant mountains, where we shall 
have to camp to-morrow night, and which are 
much higher than those which we have just 
crossed. Half-way down the descent which we 
are about to undertake, a village is perched ; a 
hundred or so of thatched huts witli enclosures 
of cactus, grouped around an old Moorish 
structure, which answers at the same time as 
citadel and as the dwelling of the chief. Trees 
are as scarce as ever in this other region ; there 
are some olive and orange trees in the mys- 
terious garden which is enclosed within the 
walls of the little fortress. Looking from above 
down into the village, we of course obtain a 



Into Moi'occo. 115 

birdseye view of it, and the terrace on the roc^f 
of the chief's house has the appearance of a 
public square, where veiled women in robes of 
pink or white are enjoying the evening air ; 
these raise their heads to observe us a^ we ap- 
proach. 

After a steep and dangerous descent among 
the fallen rocks and stones, we halt for the night 
near the walls of this garden, in a spot some- 
what like a fair-ground, which is made use of by 
all the passing caravans. The tall, coarse grass 
has been trodden down into the mud ; it is in- 
fested with vermin, and is polluted by the refuse 
of the chickens and the cous-couss that have 
been devoured there, while here and there 
great black circles mark the spots where the 
nomads built their fires. We have never expe- 
rienced such a filthy camping-ground. 

Our escort cut the soiled grass with their long 
swords, which doubtless are more frequently 
employed in cutting off heads than in work of 
this kind. Long after us our tents come strag- 
gling in one by one, drenched with rain, aud are 
set up with great difficulty, under a strong wind. 
The muleteers are forthwith treated to a taste 
of the stick, for not having got their animals 
forward with better speed. Last of all the eat- 
ables came up ; the poor mules on which they 



ii6 Into Morocco. 

are loaded have had twenty tumbles, and their 
knees are skinned and bleeding ; and so, at 
three o'clock, almost starving with hunger, we 
make a cold breakfast on fare that has been 
soaked in rain. All the children of the village, 
in their comical little bournouses and queer 
hoods, come and frisk about our quarters, 
overwhelming us with maledictions and insults. 
We make a demand for wood to dry our clothes, 
but there is none to be had in all the country; 
we are supplied with bundles of dried thistles 
and grapevine shoots, which give out abund- 
ance of flame and smoke, but little heat. 

From our camp half-way up the mountain 
side, separated by a hedge of aloes from the per- 
pendicular precipice that overhangs the plain 
below, we see at our feet the interminable Fez 
road, which stretches onward, ever onward, 
through these new fields of barley and these 
other plains, and rises to be lost among the hills 
that face us. It is more and more plainly traced 
by the constant tread of caravans, it appears 
more and more like a road ; it also assumes an 
appearance of greater animation as we approach 
the .holy city. Between showers, in the great 
transparency of the atmosphere, we perceive be- 
neath us, as if from the summit of a watch-tower, 
the long processions of bournous-clad footmen 



Into Morocco. 117 

and horsemen, of camels and mules with their 
loads of merchandise, the whole infinitely small, 
like a procession of marionettes seen far away, 
deep down in empty bluish space. Fez is not 
only the religious capital of the land of the set- 
ting sun, after Mecca the holiest of the cities of 
Islam, where priests resort to pursue their studies 
from all parts of Africa ; it is also the commer- 
cial centre of the West, which has communica- 
tion with Europe through the northern sea-ports, 
and by way of Tafilet and the desert with the 
black Soudan as far as Timbuctoo and Senegam- 
bia. And all this activity has nothing at all in 
common with ours ; it goes on as it went on a 
thousand years ago, by means which are alto- 
gether foreign tc the means employed by us, 
over routes which to us are entirely unknown. 



ii8 Into Morocco. 



XVI. 



Saturday, April 13th. 

IT rained heavily all night and the wind blew 
down half our tents. Upon leaving our 
damp beds we put on our wet clothes and our 
boots filled with water, and resume our journey 
under a sky that has the appearance of being 
shrouded in black crape. We cross the plain to 
enter the defiles of these other mountains. The 
thought that we shall have to go over this ground 
again in order to get out of this gloomy country 
oppresses us a little now and then. We are sus- 
tained, however, by the hope that to-morrow we 
shall be within sight of the holy city, like those 
crusaders and pilgrims of old, who after many 
weary days and nights of travel, were consoled 
by the promise that they were soon to see their 
Jerusalem or their Mecca. 

Toward noon, when we are among the moun- 
tains, the clouds gradually begin to thin, then 
quickly, at once, they are swept away and re- 
veal the clear, blue sky ; we are cheered and 
warmed by one first timid ray of sunlight, then 
the true light of Africa is restored to us in his 
incomparable splendor. In the space of an 



Into Morocco. 119 

hour the transformation is complete, the ground 
is dry, the heavens are blue, the air is scorch- 
ing. How differently everyihing appears be- 
neath this radiant sun ! Our course lies through 
a succession of charming valleys, where the 
sandy soil is carpeted with fine grass and with 
flowers. In particular there are gigantic fennels, 
the flower-clad stalks of which are like yellow 
trees, and which are festooned by the great 
white blossoms of the bindweed, such as we 
see in our gardens. Yellow and pink are the 
prevailing colors in the Eden through which 
our path lies to-day. The mountains commence 
to be clothed with groves of dark-hued olive 
trees, and their basaltic summits, rising in naked 
grandeur above the verdure, resemble great 
organ-pipes ; then further, through the clear air, 
beyond these nearer heights, others are visible, 
more distant and loftier still, towering gigantic 
in their height, of a blue like lapis-lazuli. 
There are no villages to be seen, no houses, no 
sign of cultivation ; only flowers and the sweet 
breath of flowers, perfuming this wonderful 
country. 

We meet men and animals in plenty, how- 
ever ; bands of nearly naked foot-travellers, 
carrying their clothes folded in bundles on their 
shoulders ; finely formed women, astride on 



I20 l7ito Morocco. 

mules, so closely veiled, even on their travels, 
that their great eyes are scarcely visible ; flocks 
of sheep and goats ; notable above all, camels, 
grave of aspect and slow of movement, bearing 
their great bales along with a swaying, rolling 
motion. At intervals we cross a stream of run- 
ning water, on the bank of which a single isol- 
ated palm-tree will be growing. At every ford 
are old men squatting in front of heaps of or- 
anges ; for a small copper coin one may take 
and eat as many of them as he pleases. 

Toward evening we came to a rapid river, the 
Oued M'Kez, over which, wonderful to relate ! 
there is a bridge. A bridge of low, rounded 
arches, into which plates of green earthenware 
are let by way of ornament. On the central 
pier is carved the mystic seal of Solomon : two 
interwoven triangles ; and on either side mosaic 
tablets, bordered with green, tell in involved 
letters the name of the architect who built the 
bridge and the praise due to the God of Islam 
from those who cross it. Lapse of years and 
the sun have combined to give the stonework a 
warm, almost pink, tint, which harmonizes won- 
derfully with the dull green of the ornamenta- 
tion. The situation, too, is peaceful and pastoral, 
impressed with the melancholy of the past and 
of neglect. 



Into Morocco. 121 

We have marched through the rain of the 
cool morning, through the burning heat of mid- 
day, and now it is the magical, golden hour of 
sunset. We are coming among the Zerhanas, a 
mountain tribe, who subsist by their farms and 
flocks, and on the far side of the bridge we 
shall encamp in their territory, in a plain of 
pink anemones, between high wooded hills. 
Our little nomad camp is already there, spread 
over the ground, in the fading sunlight, on the 
fragrant grass. 

One by one our tent poles arise, surmounted 
by their globes of shining copper ; then the 
great canvas opens out, displaying the black 
ornaments in arabesque ; the cords which 
serve to stretch them out and keep them in 
place are drawn taut, the side walls are placed 
in position, and it is done ; our houses are built 
and our camp stands erect, rejoicing to dry 
itself once more in the grateful warmth. 

How cheerful and gay it is, our little camp of 
Frenchmen, in the bustle of our arrival, in the 
mellow light of evening ; with its white tents 
relieved against the verdant landscape, with the 
brilliant contrasts afforded by the caftans of our 
Arabs and the carpets of many colors scattered 
over this meadow of an-mones. About us there 
is an animation which recalls the full, free life 



122 Into Morocco. 

of times that are past and gone ; fantasias 
scampering at top speed ; half naked shepherds 
conducting their flocks to the river ; the Sultan's 
boat, which appears in the distance, borne on 
the shoulders of its forty white-robed bearers ; 
the appearance of the nioiina (a small ox and 
twelve sheep dragged along by their horns) ; 
finally a messenger from Fez, who comes to seek 
us, the bearer of words of w^elcome from the 
Grand Vizier to the minister. 

Now the beautiful golden light begins to fade 
over it all ; the shadows of the horsemen, the 
quaint shadows of the motionless camels, assume 
an inordinate length under the rays of the sun 
which is about to disappear behind the lofty 
peaks ; now he gilds only the tops of our tents — 
now only the glittering balls on top — now he is 
gone and we are suddenly lost in a bluish half- 
light. 

Our little camp is even more charming by 
moonlight. It is one of those tranquil, radiant, 
luminous nights of benignant Africa, such as are 
never seen in our northern lands ; after the cold 
and the persistent rains, we are intoxicated with 
the joy of regaining what we had almost forgot- 
ten. The beautiful full moon rides in the midst 
of a sky bespangled with stars. Our white tents 
with their black hieroglyphics, have a mysterious 



Into Morocco. 123 

air, ranged as they are in a circle under the blue 
light that falls on them from above ; their balls 
of metal still emit dim gleams ; here and there 
fires are lighted among the grass, and the little 
red flames leap up merrily ; around them men 
in long white garments are squatted on mats, 
and the mournful sound of the guitar arises from 
the groups which will soon seek their slumbers. 
In the deep outer silence, in the sonorousness of 
the night, curlews are calling. The neighbor- 
ing mountains seem to have drawn nearer, so 
clearly can we distinguish their rocks, their hang- 
ing woods, their every most secret recess. The 
air is filled with sweet, exotic odors, and over all 
there reigns a serene tranquility that it is beyond 
the power of words to express. 

Ah ! how fine is the life of the open air, the 
noble wandering life ! What a pity that to-mor- 
row will end it, that we shall reach our destina- 
tion ! 



124 ^nto Morocco. 



XVII. 



Sunday, April 14th. 

OF this country of the Zerhanas there will 
always remain to me the recollection of 
the cool morning hours passed on the bank of 
the Oued M'Kez, among this delightful scenery, 
on this carpet of pink anemones. A little grove 
of extremely ancient olive trees near our camp 
served to give shelter to some shepherds and 
their flocks. Two or three small hamlets were 
perched like eagles' nests among the rocks and 
under-brush of the surrounding mountains. 
There was nothing African in the landscape, 
unless it might be the excess and the splendor of 
the sunlight, and even so, we sometimes see this 
vividness of verdure in our fields and this clear- 
ness of the atmosphere on occasional favored 
days of the pleasant month of June. The illusion 
was complete of being in some remote, wild 
corner of France, and there seemed to be an 
inconsistency when I saw, in the narrow lanes 
between the tall flowering grass, the mad fanta- 
sias, the Arabs and the camels. 



Into Morocco. 



XVIII. 



WE get to horse at eight o'clock and forth- 
with enter the mountains, which imme- 
diately change their character and become ex- 
tremely African in appearance, gullied and torn 
by storms, with ruddy tones of ochre, golden 
brown, reddish brown. Broad moors, lying hot 
and waste beneath the sun, pass slowly before 
our eyes, covered with thorny jujubes and scanty 
brush. And now and again, far away in the 
plains that lie consuming in the sunlight, we see 
douars of wandering Bedouins, circles of brown 
tents with the cattle in the centre ; on their 
lonely eminences, under the all-powerful rays of 
the burning sun, these little towns describe per- 
fect circles, in the distance look like rings, or 
spots of brown so dark as to be almost black. 
The overheated air everywhere quivers, ruffled 
like a pool whose surface is disturbed by a light 
wind. 



After the noon-day halt, we cross a cultivated 
valley ; fields of emerald green barley bright in 
the sun-light, with red poppies showing their 
heads among it. As we have met no living being 



126 Into Morocco. 

in the course of the morning, we cast our eyes 
about to discern the dwelling place of those who 
have sown these fields. We discover their vil- 
lage in an unexpected corner, and can scarcely 
regard it as a reality ; three high black rocks, 
pointed like gothic spires, stand towering side 
by side, most unlikely objects to meet with in 
this velvety green plain ; each of them is sur- 
mounted by a stork's nest ; a wall of beaten 
clay surrounds all the three at their base, and on 
their sides, at varying heights, are stuck a dozen 
lilliputian huts. There seems to be no one at 
home in this queer village, to which the three 
storks, motionless on the top of their several 
rocks, act as guards ; around there is only 
silence and the languor of a summer noon. 

* 
* * 

At last, at last, about four o'clock in the after- 
noon, the immense void opens once again before 
us : another level sea of vegetation, a sea green 
and yellow with barley and with fennel in 
bloom — the plain of Fez ! Far in the distance 
the great Atlas yields an imposing enclosure of 
white peaks, all sparkling with snow. 

Two leagues of journey yet — over this plain, 
and suddenly, coming from behind a skirt of the 
mountain, which draws back as a scene is shifted 



Into Morocco. 127 

in the theatre, the holy city slowly appears be- 
fore our eyes. At first, it is only a white line, 
white as the snows on Atlas, that ceaseless mir- 
ages transform and twist as if it were a thing of 
no consistency. It is, we are told, the great 
whitewashed aqueducts, which bring the water 
into the gardens of the Sultan. 

Then, the skirt of the mountain moving back 
still further, affords us a view of the great gray 
walls and the great gray towers surmounting 
them. It is a surprise to us to see Fez so dark 
of tint and standing in a plain so green, when 
we had imagined it as white, standing among 
the sands. It is true that it has a striking air of 
melancholy, but seen from such a distance 
and surrounded by such fresh verdure, it is 
difficult to believe that it is the impenetrable 
holy city, and our expectations of it are deceived. 
Still, little by little, the calm tranquility of its 
surroundings produces its effect ; there is a feel- 
ing that a strange sleep broods over this city, so 
lofty and so great, which has at its gates neither 
railroads, nor wheeled carriage, nor even a road- 
way ; nothing but grass-grown paths over which 
the slow caravans pass silently. 

We camp for the last time in a place called 
Ansala-Faradji, at half an hour's march from 
the great crenellated walls. To-morrow morning 



128 Into Morocco. 

we are to make our entry with all due ceremony; 
all the music, the troops, the entire population, 
women included, have received orders to go forth 
to welcome us. 

XIX. 

Monday, April 15th. 

ONCE again we awake beneath a lowering 
sky, presage of the deluges, the torrents of 
rain that hang suspended above our heads. 

The last morning in camp is a more busy one 
than usual. The ceremony so soon to take place 
requires great preparations ; we have to unpack 
our holiday uniforms, our crosses and decora- 
tions, and our chasseurs d'Afrique have to fur- 
bish up our arms and our horses' trappings. The 
order of march, drawn up yesterday evening in 
the minister's tent, is communicated to us at 
breakfast ; it is a matter of course that we are 
not to straggle in confusion any longer, each ac- 
cording to his own sweet will, but that the march 
is to be orderly, a front of four horsemen formed 
four deep, correctly aligned as if for a review. 

Mindful of the request which we received last 
evening on the part of the Sultan, we mount our 



Into Morocco. 129 

horses at ten o'clock precisely, so as neither to 
trouble certain religous observances of the morn- 
ing by arriving too early, nor to interfere with 
the great prayers of noon-day by arriving too 
late. We have about three quarters of an hour 
in which to reach the gates of Fez, proceeding 
slowly, either at a walk or at the slow trot used 
on parade. 

After advancing ten minutes, the city, of which 
we have hitherto seen only a portion, appears be- 
fore us in its entirety. It is really very large and 
very imposing behind its great gray-black walls, 
which overtop all the ancient towers of the 
mosques. There is a break above us in the veil 
of dark clouds; it permits us to see the snows 
of Atlas, to which the stormy sky communicates 
changing hues, now coppery, now livid. A col- 
lection of white objects outside the walls is dis- 
covered to be a group of two or three hundred 
tents. Over the whole plain, over all the green 
barley-fields, thousands upon thousands of mi- 
nute points are moving to and fro, and these are 
evidently human heads underneath their hoods, 
the human multitudes that have come forth to 
witness our entry. 

These white tents outside the city are the 
camp of the " tholbas " (students), who are now 
out in the fields holding their great annual fete. 



130 Into Morocco. 

But this word student is ill-fitted to designate 
these correct and reserved young men ; when I 
shall have occasion to mention them in the 
future, I shall retain the name tholba, which is 
untranslatable. (It is well known that Fez con- 
tains the most celebrated of the Mussulman uni- 
versities ; that two or three thousand scholars 
resort there from all the points of northern 
Africa to follow the course of study of the great 
mosque of Karaouin, one of the most venerated 
sanctuaries of Islam.) These tholbas are having 
their vacation just now, and they doubtless con- 
tribute their numbers to swell the immense crowd 
which surrounds us. 

Never was there a sky more threatening or 
more unnaturally dark, nor lighted from beneath 
by more cheerless gleams. The plain over which 
stretches this depressing dome is immured, so to 
speak, among lofty mountains whose summits 
are lost in the darkness of the clouds. Before 
us, and closing our horizon, the strange old city 
where our journey is to end presents to our eyes 
its irregular silhouette just-beneath that fantastic 
rift in the clouds through which Atlas displays 
his glittering snows. A network of little parallel 
paths, which the whim of the camel drivers has 
traced in the grass, is almost like a road ; besides 
the ground is so level that our party can march 



Into Morocco. 131 

anywhere, maintaining good order even, if de- 
sirable. 

We are commencing to get among the crowd ; 
garments of gray wool, as usual ; gray bournou- 
ses and hoods lowered. They content them- 
selves v/ith observing us, and as we advance they 
put themselves in motion to follow us ; the ex- 
pression of their faces, however, is indifferent 
and inscrutable ; no trace of sympathy nor of 
hatred is to be observed. Every mouth is tight 
shut, too ; that same slumberous silence prevails 
to-day which everywhere weighs upon this peo- 
ple, their cities, their whole country, whenever 
there is not a momentary intoxication of move- 
ment and of noise. 

We are now at the head of a double line of 
horsemen, extending as far as the eye can reach, 
up to the city gates, no doubt, drawn up at the 
side of our route to do us honor. Superb horse- 
men they are, all attired in their best, their dress 
harmonizing with the accoutrements of their 
horses ; pink caftans over green saddles, violet 
caftans over yellow saddles, blue caftans over 
orange-colored saddles. And the transparent 
fabrics of mousseline-de-laine which envelope 
them in carefully draped folds, soften these 
shades, and almost give the men the appearance 
of being clothed in white, so that it is only by 



132 Into Morocco. 

glimpses that the bright color of their under- 
garments is discernible. 

Their double alignment stretches away before 
us to a great distance, forming quite an impos- 
ing avenue, a hundred feet or so wide, where 
our party is by itself, separated from the throng 
in the green fields, which is constantly increasing 
in volume on our right hand and on our left. 
The heads of the horsemen and of their steeds 
are turned in our direction ; they remain motion- 
less, while in their rear, amidst a silence that is 
almost oppressive, the gray multitude is stirred 
to its depths as by a great wave. It follows us 
as we pass forward as if we were drawing it after 
us by a magnet, and thus it goes on, becoming 
more and more dense and spreading out farther 
and farther into the plain. As v/as the case 
when we entered Kazar, some are on foot and 
some are mounted ; again you may see three 
or four together on an ass or a mule, their legs 
dangling to the ground ; there are heads of 
families with half a dozen young ones hanging 
to the paternal bournous and bestriding his 
beast, some on the neck, some on the croup. 
The sound of all these footsteps is deadened 
by the heavy ploughed ground, and the mouths 
remain silent, while the eyes are watchful. The 
silence is of a singular sort, too ; beneath it 



Into Morocco. 



133 



there is the shufiling, hardly audible, of thou- 
sands of feet, the rustling of mantles, the deep 
breathing of the multitude. Now and then a 
shower beats down upon our heads for a few 
seconds, as if we were receiving a sprinkling 
from a watering-pot ; the threathened deluge 
does not fall, and the sky remains as black 
as ever. The walls of Fez grow higher and 
higher upon the sky before us, assuming a 
formidable aspect and reminding us of Damietta 
or Stamboul. 

Among these thousands of gray bournouses, 
all equally ragged and filthy ; among the thou- 
sands of faces persistently turned toward us and 
which keep following us behind the line of cav- 
alry, I notice a man, whose beard is already 
white, mounted on a lean mule ; he is beautiful 
among the most beautiful, noble as a God, of 
supreme distinction, with great flaming eyes. It 
is the brother of the Sultan, there, among the 
very dregs of the people, in an old threadbare 
cloak. This does not appear in any way un- 
natural in Morocco, where the Sultans, owing 
to the much married condition of their fathers, 
have an immense number of brothers and sisters, 
whom it is not always possible to endow with 
wealth ; moreover, many of these descendants 
of the Prophet find that the grand dream of their 



134 J^^^i^ Morocco. 

religion suffices to satisfy all the requirements 
of existence, and so they cheerfully live in 
poverty, disdainful of the good things of this 
life. 

* ' * 
We reach the end of our white-clad squadron, 
which is succeeded by one uniformed "entirely 
in red, a very bright red, which contrasts strik- 
ingly with the monotonous gray of the multi- 
tude ; it is like a long trail of blood, and extends 
up to the city gate, of which we can now see 
the monumental arch, opening to receive us, in 
the lofty ramparts. These troops are the Sul- 
tan's infantry, whom an ex-colonel of the English 
army, now in the service of Morocco, has uni- 
formed, alas ! upon the model of the East-Indian 
sepoys. Poor devils are these, recruited the 
Lord knows how, negroes for the most part and 
ridiculous in their strange uniforms. Their 
bare legs protrude like black poles from beneath 
the folds of their scarlet zouave trousers. After 
those handsome cavalrymen they present a sorry 
appearance ; when seen close at hand, they re- 
semble an army of monkeys. Their effect is 
better, however, when observed in mass ; their 
long line of red, skirting the deep masses of gray, 
adds another strange effect to the setting of this 
singular spectacle. 



l7ito Morocco. 135 

In the avenue of flesh and blood which lies 
open before us, resplendent personages gallop up 
to us, one after another, and increase the num- 
bers of our column, which has great difficulty in 
maintaining its proper order. The Oriental col- 
oring of their costumes is always softened and 
toned down by long veils of creamy white, which 
fall around their forms in folds of inimitable 
grace and majesty. The first to present himself is 
the " Lieutenant to the Introducer of Ambassa- 
dors," all dressed in green, on a horse with 
equipments of golden yellow ; then comes the 
old Caid Belail, the court jester, in delicate 
pink ; his broad negro features, repulsive in spite 
of their drollery, are surmounted by a pyramidal, 
pear-shaped turban, modeled in form upon the 
towers of the palace of the Kremlin ; these 
are succeeded by other dignitaries ; ministers 
of state and viziers. They all wear long 
gold-plated scimetars, of wliich the hilt is a 
rhinoceros horn, and their silk belts and tassels 
present a charming variety of shades. 

We are about to pass before a military band, 
which forms part of the line, incorporated with 
the regiment of scarlet infantry. Strangely cos- 
tumed it is, and strange to look upon. The 
bandsmen are negroes, and their long robes, fall- 
ing straight from their shoulders to the ground, 



136 Into Morocco. 

give them the appearance of immensely tall old 
women in dressing gowns. The colors which 
they wear are gaudy in the extreme, unmitigated 
by the slightest presence of a veil ; on the con- 
trary, they are arranged as if with a set purpose 
to heighten the effect as much as possible by 
contrasting one with another ; for instance, a 
purple robe besides one of royal blue ; an 
orange-colored robe between a violet and a green 
one. Seen against the neutral back-ground of 
the surrounding throng, and near the muslin- 
veiled cavaliers, they constitute the most gro- 
tesquely conspicious group that I ever saw in any 
country. 

They carry huge instruments of shining brass, 
and as we reach their front, they blow with all 
their might into their horns, their long trumpets 
and their monstrous trombones ; the result is a 
sudden cacophony, sufficient almost to terrify 
one. The first impulse is to laugh, but no ; it 
verges on the absurd, but does not reach it ; 
their music is so mournful, the sky is so dark, 
the scenery so grand, the place so strange, that 
we are deeply impressed and remain serious. 

It acts, however, as the signal for a great 
clamor ; the charm of silence is broken ; from 
every quarter arises a tumultuous roar of voices. 
Other bands, too, strike up in different direc- 



Into Morocco. 137 

tions, and we hear the squeak of the pipes like 
the yelping of jackals, the thumping of the tam- 
bourines, and drawling voices crying : " Hou ! 
May Allah grant victory to our Sultan, Sidi 
Muley- Hassan — Hou ! " A sudden noisy mad- 
ness seems to have seized all this crowd, which 
still keeps following us, still runs at our heels. 

Then the bands cease playing, there is an end 
to the strange confusion ; a great silence suddenly 
falls upon us and enwraps all again ; again 
nothing is heard but the rustling of the garments 
of these countless, hurrying people, the sound 
of their thousand foot-falls deadened upon the 
soft earth. 

Here come the banners, arranged in line, to 
right and left, waving over the heads of the 
troops ; regimental colors, flags of corporations, 
banners of trade associations, made of silk of all 
colors with curious emblems ; several have the 
two intertwined triangles which form the seal of 
Solomon. 

In advance of the lines forming this human 
avenue, there awaits us a magnificent individual 
of colossal size, mounted, and surrounded by 
other cavaliers who act as his guard of honor. 
It is "Caid Mechouar," Introducer of Embassa- 
dors. At this juncture there is an instant of 
hesitation, almost of anxiety ; he remains motion- 



138 Into Morocco. 

less, evidently looking for the French minister 
to draw rein and anticipate him in making 
advances, but the minister, careful of the dignity 
of the embassy, rides proudly by on his white 
horse without turning his head, as if he had ob- 
served nothing. Then the great Caid makes up 
his mind to give in, and spurs his horse up to us; 
he and the minister shake hands and the inci- 
dent having terminated to our satisfaction, we 
continue our progress toward the gates. 

* 
* * 

And now we are on the point of entering the 
city. The lofty walls rise before us at about a hun- 
dred metres distance, apparently penetrating the 
dark storm-clouds with their pointed battlements. 
On either side of the high archway that yawns to 
receive us, on the sloping terraces, we see some- 
thing that looks like a heap of white pebbles ; it 
is the heads and faces of many women, rising 
one above the other. They sit there, crowded 
to the point of suffocation, uniformly veiled in 
thick woolen stuffs, motionless and silent as 
death. Others are perched in small groups on 
the crest of the ramparts, whence they look down 
and obtain a birdseye view of tlie ceremonies. 
The red, green, yellow banners flutter in the air 
against the back-ground of the dark walls. A 



Into Morocco. 139 

"holy woman," endowed with the gift of pro- 
phesy, draws back her veil, and, mounting a 
stone, gives utterance to her foreboding in a low 
voice ; her eyes are wild, her face is daubed 
with Vermillion, she holds in her hand a bouquet 
of orange flowers and marigolds. Under the 
great, gray, sullen archway, we can see at a cer- 
tain distance another gate of the same immense 
dimensions, but to which its bordering of mo- 
saics and pink and blue arabesques imparts an 
appearance of freshness and cheerfulness ; like 
the entrance to some enchanted palace that lies 
concealed among all this ruin. 

And all this striking tableau, this multitude 
silently awaiting our entry, this display of ban- 
ners, is distinctly middle-age in character ; it 
carries us back to the grandeur, the rudeness, 
the sombre naivete of the fifteenth century. 

We enter; then comes the astonishment and 
the awe of being among ruins and empty space. 

It is evident that all the people must have 
been outside the gates, for there is scarcely a 
soul to be seen here on the streets where we pass. 
And then this gate of the pink and blue ara- 
besques, which appeared so fairy-like from a 
distance, loses greatly when seen near by ; it is 



140 Into Morocco. 

huge in size, but is only a coarse recent imita- 
tion of ancient splendor. It gives access to the 
quarters of the Sultan, which of themselves oc- 
cupy almost the whole of the space of " Fez- 
Djedid" (Fez the New), whose walls we are now 
skirting, almost as high and forbidding as the 
walls of the '""■"y. At th'^ foot of these enclos- 
ures of the palace, in a cesspool, is a place for 
throwing the dead bodies of animvals,the carcasses 
of horses and camels, and the air is filled with a 
disag-'^eable corpse-like odor. We pass on be- 
yond '^hese horrid seraglio walls, crumbling away 
in their antiquity, which seem to pierce the 
heavens with their towers, and surround and en- 
close the one the other in their excess of dis- 
trustful jealousy. 

Soon we are among the waste lands which 
separate New Fez from " Fez-Bali " (Fez the 
Old), where our dwelling place is to be. Our 
way lies over great uneven boulders and the sur- 
face of rocks that have been rounded and worn 
for centuries by the feet of men and the hoofs 
of beasts. We pursue our course among quag- 
mires, caverns, burying-places, old as Islam ; 
amo-ng low elevations covered with cactus and 
aloes ; among Koubas (the mortuary chapels of 
the holy men) surmounted by domes and adorn- 
ed by inscriptions in mosaic on black plates. 



Into Morocco. 141 

One of those Koubas, almost like a mosque in 
extent and height, stands on the summit of a 
great rock ; there are women stationed on its 
ancient walls, like birds perching among ruins, 
and looking down upon us through openings in 
their veils ; every painted eye is turned on us ; 
higher still, from the top of the dome, a great 
motionless stork watches us intently and puts 
the finishing touch to the extraordinary structure. 
Behind the Kouba two palm trees rise erect and 
unbending, like plants of metal ; their bunches 
of yellowish plumes at the top of their lofty 
stems, stand out in clear relief against the threat- 
ening sky. As we ride by a sharp, quick volley 
of " You ! you ! you ! yous ! " salutes us from 
the top of this Kouba, the women removing their 
veils from their mouths so as to be heard moie 
distinctly, and as we lift our heads to look at 
them, our horses shy violently — at some dead 
animal in the road-way, as we think. But no ; 
directly in front of them, in the middle of the 
road and unprotected by fence or railing is a 
great yawning chasm, large enough to swallow 
horses and riders, and affording access to those 
immense subterranean chambers which are ex- 
cavated in Morocco for the purpose of stowing 
away grain in case of war or famine, and which 
are known as silos. Now I can understand that 



142 Into Morocco. 

Moroccan expression — '* To fall into a silo,"^ 
the meaning of which is to be caught in a diffi- 
culty from whence it is impossible to extricate 
one's self. 

Old Fez lies before us ; the same grim walls, 
seamed with cracks from top to bottom, the same 
decaying battlements. A triple gate of ogival 
form, deep set in the wall, warped and thick, ex- 
actly similar in every respect to that of the fort- 
ress of the Alhambra, gives us admission to this 
infinitely ancient and infinitely holy city. At 
first we traverse an ill-looking street, between 
ruinous and blackened walls of great height, 
without a window to relieve their severe aspect ; 
at considerable distances only there are grated 
openings, from which we are furtively observed 
by female eyes. Then we pass through a corner 
of the covered bazaar, which, even at this dis- 
tance, is typical of the bazaars of the barbarous 
Soudan. Then suddenly, without warning, we 
turn a corner and find ourselves in a region of 
gardens. 

Here the same melancholy reigns, though in 
another form. We pass in Indian file through a 
labyrinth of narrow lanes, which twist in every 
direction and return upon themselves, so narrow 



Into Morocco. 143 

that as we pass our knees knock against the walls 
to right and left. Little, old, low walls of hard- 
ened clay, seamed and cracked by the sun and 
embroidered with yellow lichens, over which are 
seen palm trees and charming branches of orange 
trees covered with flowers. The Sultan's red 
troops, who will insist on doing escort duty and 
will not be dissuaded, are trodden upon and 
crowded to the wall by our horses, which go 
splashing through the mud as black and tenacious 
as that of Kazar-el-Kebir. There are a few 
little grated and bolted openings at long inter- 
vals, along this labyrinth of narrow lanes, and 
one has difficulty in explaining to himself how 
people get into these gardens and how, once in, 
they get out. 

At length our guide stops before the oldest, 
narrowest and lowest of these gates, set in the 
most ancient of the walls ; one might be 
pardoned for thinking it the entrance to a rab- 
bit hutch, and even then they must be very 
poor rabbits to live in such a place ; here it is. 
however, that the French ambassador and his 
suite are to be lodged. 

(I truly regret that I have to make such fre- 
quent use of the word ''old," and I apologize. 
In the same way, I remember that when I was 
writing of Japan, the word " little " recurred at 



144 •^^^'^ Morocco. 

every line in spite of me. Here the dominant 
impression produced by the surroundings is 
that of extreme oldness^ an oldness of decay and 
death ; it must be taken for granted, once for 
all, that every thing that I mention has been 
trodden by the heel of centuries, that the walls 
are corroded and eaten away by moss, that the 
houses are crumbling away and ready to tumble 
down, that the stones have lost their angles.) 

The passage is so narrow that it is not an 
easy matter to dismount ; it is an operation that 
must be performed without delay, however. As 
one leaves the saddle, he must jump with a 
rapid movement to the little old low gateway 
and enter at once, so as not to be knocked down 
by the rider who comes up close behind, who is 
himself in turn driven onward by the succeed- 
ing tiles. The entry once safely effected, we 
fall upon the bayonets of a guard of soldiers, 
under the command of a species of old black 
janissary, whose orders are to never permit any 
of his French guests to go out unaccompanied 
by an armed escort. Such a beginning is not 
promising, but in Morocco one should never 
trouble himself about the outside of his house ; 
the most wretched approaches sometimes lead 
to fairy palaces. 

Once past the guard, we come to a delicious 



Into Morocco. 145 

garden ; great orange trees, all white with 
flowers, are planted in quincunxes among a 
thicket of roses, jasmines, gilliflowers and 
southern-wood. Then a flagged avenue con- 
ducts to another door, very low also and situa- 
ted at the bottom of a lofty walJ, which opens 
upon a courtyard like those of the Alhambra, 
with arched passageways, ornaments of ara- 
besques, inlaid pavements, and fountains spout- 
ing in marble basins. Here the ambassador will 
have to pass the three days of quarantine, of 
'' purification," as it is called, which are always 
inflicted on foreigners who have been granted 
the favor of entering Fez. 

In all the confusion of our arrival, I approach 
the minister with my request that I may be 
allowed to go and live in another quarter, by 
myself, in a house that a friend whom I provi- 
dentially met has placed at my disposal. 

The minister smiles, suspecting, perhaps, some 
half- formed project on my part of not purifying 
myself, a black design of escaping supervision 
and of commencing at once explorations which 
are not permitted. But he graciously gives his 
consent, so I mount my horse again, in the fine 
rain which is now coming down persistently, and 



1 46 Into , Morocco . 

proceed in search of my own particular abiding 
place. 



XX. 



WRITTEN on this same day of my arrival, 
at nine or ten o'clock at night in the sol- 
itude of my own dwelling. 

Of all the shelters which have covered my 
head during the course of my life, there was 
never one more forbidding than this, nor less 
commonplace in its means of approach. Never, 
too, was there a more complete impression of en- 
tire separation from my country, of myself being 
changed to some other person, of a quite differ- 
ent world and of a long gone time. 

Around me lies the sombre city of the saints, 
upon which the cold darkness of night has fal- 
len, intensified by a wintry rain. At sunset Fez 
closed the gates of her long embattled ramparts, 
and then afterwards all the old interior gates 
which divide the city into many quarters, which 
at night have no communication with each other. 

My habitation is in one of the quarters of Fez- 
Bali (old Fez), thus named in contradistinction 
to Fez-Djedid (new Fez), new Fez itself being a 
nest of owls that dates back some six or eight 
centuries. Old Fez is a network of dark covered 



Into Morocco. ' 147 

lanes, which twist and turn in unimaginable 
confusion among great blackish walls. In all 
the tall fronts of these inaccessible houses, there 
is scarcely a window to be seen ; only narrow 
slits, which are always carefully barred. As to 
the doors, deep set in their embrasures, they are 
so low that one must bend almost double to gain 
an entrance, and then they are always strapped 
with heavy iron bands and furnished with bolts 
and locks, with great nails and spikes, and with 
cumbrous knockers worn by the contact of many 
hands ; all distorted, rusted, warped, and twist- 
ed — thousands of years old. 

Of all this multitude of little narrow criss-cross 
streets, I think that the narrowest and the black- 
est is mine. It is reached by a low archway, and 
at midday it is almost as dark as night ; it is 
strewn with garbage of all sorts, with dead mice 
and dead dogs ; the earth is excavated from the 
middle of it so as to make a gutter and the ped- 
estrian plunges almost knee-deep into liquid 
filth. It is exactly one metre in width, and when 
two persons chance to meet there, wrapped in 
their heavy cloaks or shrouded, like phantoms, 
in their veils of white woolen stuff, they must 
forcibly squeeze each other against the wall ; 
when I go by on horseback, people coming in an 
opposite direction must retreat before me or else 



148 Into Morocco. 

seek the shelter of the doorways, for my stirrups 
scrape against the walls on either side. Higher 
up the street becomes narrower yet, like a rat- 
trap ; the tottering walls approach each other, 
scarcely allowing a pale light to glimmer between 
them here and there, a light such as is seen from 
the bottom of a well. 

My door, which I have never succeeded in 
passing in the darkness without bumping my 
head, gives access to a place where there is even 
less light than in the street, a staircase, to wit, 
which you meet as soon as you open the door, 
and which goes winding in spirals up the little 
tower. It is so narrow that one's shoulders graze 
the walls on both sides ; it is steep as a ladder ; 
its inlaid stone steps have been worn away by 
Arab papooches ; its walls are black with the 
filth of many succeeding human generations, 
worn by the rubbing of many hands and rough 
as those of a cavern. As one ascends, he comes 
from time to time on bolted doors, which open 
on all sorts of holes and corners full of rubbish, 
spider-webs and dust. At last, about as high up 
as an ordinary second story, a corridor is 
reached, intersected by two iron-bound doors, 
which, from its direction, would seem to run at 
right angles with the street ; it is not a matter of 
any importance, however, since there are no win- 



Into Morocco. 149 

dows and the street is as dark as pitch. It is 
impossible to decipher the plan of a house in 
Fez ; they are all tangled up together, inter- 
woven, one running into another ; thus the base- 
ment, and perhaps the first story, of my house 
constitute part of another of which I shall never 
know anything. 

At the end of the corridor, we at length meet 
the light and the cold wind from out-doors ; we 
reach a large room with naked, cracked and 
dirty walls. The floor is inlaid, and the lofty 
ceiling of cedar, ornamented with carved ara- 
besques, is cut in the centre in a great square, 
which looks out on the gray sky ; through this 
opening the cold rain falls continually upon the 
stone floor, with a sound like the plashing of a 
brook ; that way came down a subdued light 
when it was day, and that way comes down now 
the chilly night. 

Two high doors of cedar, facing each other, 
and each with two leaves, open on this interior 
court. They lead to two symmetrical apartments, 
very lofty of ceiling, with walls full of chinks 
and crevices. One of these rooms is mine, the 
other will be occupied to-morrow by Selim and 
Mohammed, my attendants. 

This same disposition is met with in all Mo- 
rocco habitations, these same great double- 



150 Into Morocco. 

leaved doors on each side of a court open to the 
sky, through which comes all the light that the 
dwelling receives. These doors are never shut 
until after nightfall, for as soon as they are closed, 
the apartments, which commonly have no win- 
dows, are left in darkness. Again, as the doors 
are massive and require considerable exertion to 
open or shut, an egress is managed in each of 
the leaves by means of a very small ogival door, 
like a sort of human cat's-hole, prettily bordered 
with arabesques. And so it is everywhere, in the 
palace of the Sultan, as well as in the hovel of 
the meanest of his subjects. 

As is the custom at the close of day, I have 
fastened the great doors of my bedroom with a 
bar of iron a metre in length. Then taking a 
lantern in my hand, I make my exit through one 
of my ornamented cat-holes and proceed to make 
a tour of exploration of my. house that I am so 
little acquainted with. My first care is to des- 
cend the staircase in the little turret and pru- 
dently secure the low entrance-way which com- 
municates with the street ; then, passing to the 
stories above, my discoveries give me a shock ; 
other little corridors, other dilapidated rooms of 
irregular shape, filled with rubbish, with lumber. 



l7ito Morocco. 151 

old saddles, pack-saddles for mules, chickens 
dead and chickens alive ! 

It is a very exceptional circumstance that an 
European should thus be living in a private house 
in the holy city of Fez. In the first place, there 
are never any visitors except those connected 
with an embassy, and in such case quarters are 
always provided for all in some palace designa- 
ted by the Sultan, which it is not permitted any 
one to leave unless with a guard. Admitting 
that a " Nazarene " (as the Arabs call us) should 
succeed in reaching here unattended, he would 
stand a good chance of starving to death in the 
streets, for no Mussulman, for any money, would 
consent to rent him a place to lay his head or to 
prepare anything for him to eat. But there is in 
Fez a permanent French establishment ; three 
officers for the instruction of troops and a mili- 
tary surgeon, Doctor L., whose name I shall no 
doubt have frequent occasion to mention. These, 
with the English ex-Colonel whom I have spoken 
of, and an Italian, superintendent of an arms 
factory, constitute the entire European colony 
of the city. Under the protection of the Sultan 
they are not interfered with, and by observing 
certain precautions they can circulate in the 
streets with almost perfect freedom. By imperial 
order, the chiefs of quarters compelled the in- 



152 Into Morocco. 

habitants, who were sulky over it, to hire each 
one of them a house, and Doctor L., through some 
circumstances to me unknown, happening at the 
present time to have two, has placed one of them 
at my disposal ; so that it is owing to his kind- 
ness that I shall live in Fez under very except- 
ional conditions of freedom. 

And now, locked in for good and all for the 
night, my two cat-holes closed, I am alone in 
my room, shivering with cold in spite of my 
bournous ; I hear the sound of the falling rain, 
the dripping gutters, the wind blowing as it does 
in winter ; now and then, too, a religious chant 
reaches my ears from some distant mosque. 
Very dilapidated and very cheerless is my great 
bedroom, with its naked walls, cracked from top 
to bottom, white with the lime that was applied 
hundreds of years ago, and ornamented with 
hangings of spider-webs. In two of the corners 
little half-hidden doors lead to dark garrets. 
To-morrow, when I shall have had the inlaid 
stone floor washed and swept of its thick coat 
of dust, perhaps it will be the only pretty thing 
that my dwelling will afford. 

My entire furnishing consists of a great R'bat 
carpet of antique design and dull colors, a camp 
mattress laid upon this carpet and covered with 
a Moroccan blanket, a small table and a tall 



Itito Morocco. 153 

brass candle-stick. I have adopted the Arab 
dress from head to foot, and caftans and bour- 
nouses, which a Jew brought for sale this evening, 
are hanging from their hooks, all ready for to- 
morrow's prohibited explorations. The only 
European things near me are the pen and paper 
which I am using to write with. The poor 
"tholbas," pursuing their studies at Karaouin, 
must be equipped somewhat like me when they 
are at home. 

I review the rapid succession of circumstances 
which has brought me to this queer dwelling 
place, as if I were a puppet moved by wires. 
First the suddenness of my unexpected departure 
for Morocco ; then our twelve days' journey 
on horseback, during which a little of France 
remained with me still : the meeting of pleasant 
companions under the great tent at meal-times 
and their cheerful talk about the things of to- 
day, almost to the exclusion of all thought of 
the som.bre land in which v/e are burying our- 
selves ; then our extraordinary entrance into 
Fez this morning, to the sound of pipes and 
tambourines ; finally, my sudden separation 
from the rest of the embassy, my coming in the 
rain to this ruinous abode, and the absolute soli- 
tude in which I have spent my evening. 

This utter abandonment of home and country, 



154 J^nto Morocco. 

these entire transformations of self and sur- 
roundings, have always been my favorite amuse- 
ment and my great resource against the monot- 
ony of life, and so, this evening, I endeavor to 
amuse myself with my Arab costumes, and, 
especially, by the reflection that I am living in 
an inaccessible house in the very depths of the 
holy city. But no ; in spite of all reasoning, the 
dominant feeling is that of a deep-seated melan- 
choly which I had not looked for ; a yearning 
for France, the country of my home ; an almost 
childish regret, spoiling all the charm of this 
strange novelty ; the sentiment of the shroud of 
Islam, falling upon me and enveloping me in its 
heavy folds, with not a corner raised to afford 
me a breath of outer air, and much more oppres- 
sive to bear than I could have thought it. Per- 
haps, too, the aspect of death which pervades 
this house has something to do with producing 
this feeling, and the drops which fall from the 
ceiling with such a doleful sound, and the 
voices chanting in a minor key from the summit 
of the minarets, into the darkness of the night. 
But really, the impression of the first few days 
is one of suffocation ; the being buried in the 
labyrinth of these little narrow streets ; the 
proximity of all these people who either hate 
you or despise you, and who only tolerate you 



Into Morocco. 155 

in their city because they are compelled to, and 
would be glad to let you die like a dog in their 
streets ; and all these tight-shut interior gates 
of the different quarters — and tightly shut, too, 
the great gates of the ramparts, imprisoning the 
whole ; and outside and beyond it all, the black 
darkness of the wild, fierce country, even more 
inhospitable than the city, where there are no 
roads for us to fly by and where dwell savage 
tribes that delight in murder. 

XXI. 

Tuesday, April i6th. 

THE first night spent in this house was dis- 
mal enough; perpetually the same sounds; 
the rain, the wind, the chanting of prayers in the 
distance. About two o'clock in the morning, the 
old doors of the staircase and the corridor were 
rattled so, there was such a clashing of iron, that' 
I thought some one was trying to get in, so I took 
my lantern and made a thorough tour of inspec- 
tion. But there was no one ; it was only the 
wind, and the bolts were all undisturbed. 

I went to sleep again and was only awakened 
by the light penetrating through the chinks of 
my great cedar doors. I went barefooted over 
the carpet which covers my stone floor, and 



156 Into Morocco. 

opening one of the little cat-holes, looked through 
the yawning opening in the roof out upon the 
sky ; a fine, drizzling rain was still falling from 
the same wintry sky and a cold wind, like that of 
northern climes, blew upon my face. In the piti- 
less light, at once bright and wan, which fell 
from above together with the rain, the antiquity, 
the desolateness, the dilapidation of my house 
appeared even more utter than they had done 
before. The mosaics of the inlaid floor, which 
the rain had washed clean, could alone boast any 
freshness of color. 

* 

The morning is spent in trying on costumes 
for full dress. A certain Edriss, an Algerine 
Mussulman, whom Doctor L. has procured for 
me as a guide, has brought me for selection caf- 
tans of pink, yellow, brown and dark blue cloth, 
as well as belts, turbans and great silken girdles 
to hold the poniard and the alms-bag in which 
every believer should carry a little manuscript 
commentary on the holy writings ; finally long 
veils of transparent woolen stuff to wear over the 
dress and tone down its colors. He teaches me 
also the difficult art of enfolding one's self 
gracefully in these veils, which are wrapped two 
or three times about the body from the head 



Into Morocco. 157 

down, and to the proper arrangement of which 
the remainder of the toilette is subordinated. 
To say nothing of the romance of this disguise, 
it is certain that the Arab dress is indispensable 
at Fez to one who wishes to go about with free- 
dom and inspect men and things closely. 

Three O'clock of the Afternoon. 

There is a knock ; I know who it is and go 
down stairs to open the door, clad in a very plain 
Arab dress of white woolen, slightly soiled, such 
as is seen on the people passing in the streets. 
At the door I find three mules standing with 
their heads turned in the direction which we are 
to follow, on account of the impossibility of turn- 
ing between these high walls, which are so close 
together that they almost touch. One of the 
three mules is held by a groom, and notwith- 
standing it is a day of purificatio?i and retreat, 
I swing myself into the high-peaked saddle, cov- 
ered with red cloth. The other two are mounted 
by persons wrapped in long bournouses, one of 
whom is Edriss, and the other, whom no one 
could distinguish from a real Bedouin, is Captain 
H. de v., one of the members of the embassy, 
who does not care more than I do to purify him- 
self to-day ; he is my habitual companion in all 



15^ Into Morocco. 

excursions and all his impressions upon this 
country coincide with mine. Without a word 
said, the three of us move forward, as if the 
object of our journey was understood before- 
hand. The drizzle of rain is still falling from 
the low-hanging clouds. 

For a long time we proceed in Indian file in 
this persistent rain which makes the dark little 
streets more dismal still. For the greater part 
of the time the water or liquid mud is up to the 
knees of our animals, which slide on the stones, 
sink into holes, and twenty times come near go- 
ing down. We often have to bend down to the 
saddle to avoid breaking our heads as we pass 
under some low archway. We momentarily have 
to stop and seek the protection of a gateway, or 
else back out into another street, so as to afford 
passage to loaded mules, or perhaps to horses 
or asses. 

We pass through the covered bazaar, where 
a kind of semi-twilight prevails continually ; here 
we are elbowed by all sorts of people and things; 
we crowd the by-passers up against the houses 
and we are all the time scraping the old walls 
with our stirrups. 

At length we arrive at our destination : a great 
evil-looking court-yard, old and tumble-down, 
like everything else at Fez, and surrounded by 



Into Morocco 159 

massive entrances which give it the appearance 
of the exercising ground of a prison; it is the slave 
market, which Christians are not permitted to see. 

The market is empty to-day ; we had been in- 
correctly informed ; there have doubtless been no 
arrivals from the Soudan, for we are told that 
the're will be no sales for two or three days to 
come. Following Edriss, then, we pursue our 
way, in strict silence always, among the entangle- 
ment of streets, which seem to us to grow even 
darker and narrower as we advance. 

Now a great murmur of human voices reaches 
us, voices praying and chanting at the same time 
in one unvarying rhythm, with a fervid piety 
that is immense. At the the same time we are 
aware of a white light in the midst of the black 
labyrinth ; it proceeds from a great ogival door- 
way, in front of which our guide, Edriss, who 
has reduced his mule's gait to the slowest walk, 
turns in his saddle and looks at us. We ques- 
tion him by an imperceptible sign : " That is it, 
is it not ? " In the same manner, by a move- 
ment of the eyelids, he answers: "Yes." And 
we proceed at the slowest possible rate of speed, 
so that we may see the more. 

" It " is Karaouin, the holy mosque, the 
Mecca of all the Moghreb, whence war on the in- 
fidels has been preached for a thousand years, and 



i6o Into Morocco. 

from whence emanate those fierce expounders 
of the faith who year by year spread themselves 
over the wastes of Morocco, Algeria and Egypt, 
even to the remotest parts of the Sahara and the 
black Soudan. By day and by night its vaulted 
roof is resounding, without any intermission, to 
this same confused sound of song and prayer ; 
it may be able to contain twenty-thousand people, 
its size is that of a city. For centuries wealth 
of every sort has been accumulating there, and 
mysterious deeds are done within its walls. 
Through the great ogive of the doorway we can 
see the pillars and arcades stretching away into 
the dimness of the distance, all exquisite in form, 
carved and ornamented with the wonderful art 
of the Arabs. Thousands of lights are suspended 
from the vaulted roof, and everyihing is snowy- 
white ; the half-shadows of the outer corridors 
are penetrated by the white light. The race of 
the faithful lie prostrate on the ground in their 
bournouses, on the inlaid pavement with its bright 
colors; and the murmur of hymns ascends, un- 
ceasing and monotonous as the sound of the sea. 
We dare not speak, nor stop, nor even look 
too inquisitively, for fear of being detected in 
our violation of quarantine. We will ride around 
the immense mosque, however, with its twenty 
entrances, and will see how it looks under other 



Into Morocco. i6i 

aspects. There is a sort of narrow circular road 
surrounding it, which we follow, our animals 
sinking at every step into the mud, filth and de- 
caying animal and vegetable matter. There is 
nothing to be seen from the outside except the 
lofty black walls, dilapidated and ready to fall, 
against which lean the old houses, its neigh- 
bors. Whenever we pass one of the doors, we 
check our mules with a vague sentiment of awe 
and veneration ; then for an instant we catch 
the white light of the sanctuary and the sound 
of prayerful voices. It is of so great an extent 
that we are not very successful in deciphering 
the main plan on which it is laid out ; its arcades 
are infinitely varied, some being lofty, light and 
graceful beyond expression, ornamented with in- 
describable wreaths and garlands and with clus- 
ters of stalactites ; others having the forms of 
many-leaved trefoils, elongated arches and ogives. 
Wherever our sight penetrates, there, prostrate 
on the stone floor, is the multitude of bournouses, 
murmuring their never ceasing prayers. 

We shall doubtless see Karaouin frequently 
during our stay at Fez, but I do not think that 
we shall ever have a more profound impression 
of it than that produced by this first glimpse, 
furtively snatched on that day when it was for- 
bidden us. 



i62 Into Morocco. 



XXII. 



Wednesday, April 17th. 

THIS morning we are to be presented to 
the Sultan, one day of our quarantine 
having been graciously remitted to us. At 
half past eight we are all assembled in full uni- 
form in the Moorish court-yard of the house 
occupied by the minister and his suite. Then 
comes the Caid Introducer of Ambassadors^ a 
gigantic, bull-necked mulatto, carrying an 
enormous staff of some cheap metal. (To per- 
form the duties of this office one of the largest 
men of the empire is always selected.) Four 
persons in long white robes enter in his suite 
and remain standing motionless behind him, all 
of them furnished with staves like his, which 
they hold in front of them at arm's length, just 
as a drum-major holds his cane. Their duty is 
simply to keep our road clear of people. 

When we are ready to mount, we pass through 
the orange grove, where that same fine wintry 
rain is falling that has accompanied us so faith- 
fully thus far on our journey, and direct our 
steps toward the low gateway which gives access 
to the street ; here the horses are brought up, 



Into Morocco. 163 

one by one. The street is so narrow that the 
animals cannot turn about in it nor proceed two 
abreast ; we accordingly mount them as they 
come up, hap-hazard, hastily and without 
order. 

From here to the palace it is quite a long 
distance, and we have to pass through the same 
quarters that we did in coming here day before 
yesterday. In front of us, the sticks play here 
and there upon the backs of people who are 
obstructing the way, and we are surrounded by 
a file of terrified, red-uniformed soldiers who are 
constantly getting under our horses' heels, and 
whose bayonets, reaching to the height of our 
eyes, are a constant menace to us in the confu- 
sion of our rapid movements. As on the day of 
our entry, we cross the waste lancis which lie 
between Old Fez and New Fez, with their rocks, 
aloe trees, caves, tombs, ruins, and the heaps of 
decaying animals above which the birds of prey 
are wheeling. At length we arrive before the 
first enclosure of the palace, and make our entry 
into the court of the Ambassadors through a 
great ogival gateway. 

This court-yard is of such immense extent 
that I know of no city in the world that pos- 
sesses one of similar dimensions. It is surrounded 
by those lofty and forbidding walls that I have 



164 I^ito Morocco. 

spoken of before, flanked by solid square bas- 
tions — in the same manner as are the walls of 
Stamboul and Damietta — with something about 
them still more dilapidated, more threatening, 
more awe-inspiring ; the place is covered with 
coarse grass, and in the centre is a marsh where 
the frogs are piping. The sky is black, filled with 
angry clouds ; birds leave their niches in the 
towers and wheel in circles in the air. 

Notwithstanding the thousands of men who 
are standing in dense array around its four sides 
under the old walls, the place seems empty. The 
spectators are the same as ever, the same colors 
also prevail ; on one side, a white multitude in 
cloaks and cowls, on the other a red multitude, 
the troops of the Sultan, with their band at their 
head in their robes of orange, green, violet, 
brown and yellow. The central part of the im- 
mense court, where we have taken our position, 
is completely deserted. And the crowd, far dis- 
tant from us as it is, and heaped up against the 
foot of these overpowering battlements, looks 
like a crowd of Lilliputians. 

This place has communication with the inner 
precincts of the palace through one of its corner 
bastions. This bastion, in less ruinous condi- 
tion than the others and new^ly whitewashed, has 
two charming great arched gateways, surrounded 



Into Morocco. 165 

with pink and blue arabesques, and it is through 
one of these arches that the Sultan is to make 
his appearance. 

We are requested to dismount, for no one may 
presume to remain mounted in the presence of 
the Commander of the Faithful. So our beasts 
are led away, and here we are, standing in the 
mud, among the wet grass. 

There is a movement among the troops, and 
the red infantry and their parti-colored band 
come and form up in two ranks, making a wide 
avenue from the centre of the court where we 
are stationed down to the bastion yonder from 
which the Sultan is to approach, and all eyes are 
fixed on the gate surrounded with arabesques, 
awaiting the holy apparition. 

The gate is fully two hundred metres away 
from us, such is the great size of the court yard^ 
and the first ones to approach through the lane 
of troops are the great officers of state, the 
viziers : men whose visages are thoughtful and 
whose beards are growing white ; they, too, are 
on foot to-day, like ourselves, and walk with slow 
steps in the dignity of their white veils and float- 
ing bournouses. We know almost all these per- 
sons from having met them on our arrival day 
before yesterday, but they j^resented a prouder 
appearance then, mounted on their fine horses. 



1 66 Into Morocco. 

There appears, also, the Caid Belail, the black 
court buffoon, with his indescribable turban 
shaped like a dome ; he advances by himself 
with a distracting gait, swaying to and fro as if 
he were hung on wires, supported by an enor- 
mous bludgeon-like staff ; there is an unspeak- 
able repulsive and scoffing air about him, which 
seems to tell his consciousness of the favor 
which he enjoys with his master. 

The rain still threatens ; storm-clouds, im- 
pelled by the high wind, drive through the 
heavens in company with the flocks of birds, 
giving an occasional glimpse of that deep blue 
which alone reminds us that we are in the coun- 
try of light. The walls, the towers are in every 
direction bristling with their pointed battlements, 
rising in the air with the appearance of combs 
from which part of the teeth have been broken ; 
they loom up gigantic, shutting us in as in a cit- 
adel of immense size and fantastic form. Time 
has endowed them with a golden-gray color that 
is very striking; they are broken, cracked, ready 
to fall ; they produce upon the mind the impres- 
sion of an antiquity that is lost in night. Two 
or three storks are looking down upon the throng 
from their perches among the battlements ; a 
donkey, too, that has in some way or other suc- 
ceeded in getting up into one of the towers with 



Into Morocco. 167 

his red-covered saddle on his back, surveys the 
scene from his vantage-ground. 

Through the gateway that is bordered with 
pink and blue arabesques, upon which our at- 
tention is more and more closely fixed, there now 
streams a band of fifty little negro slaves, 
dressed in red with white surplices, like choir 
boys. They march awkwardly, huddling together 
like a flock of sheep. 

Then six magnificent white horses are led 
forth, all saddled and caparisoned in silk, rear- 
ing and pawing the ground. 

Then a gilded coach, of the time of Louis 
XV — incongruous with the surroundings, and 
looking very trifling and ridiculous among all 
this rude grandeur. It has the distinction of being 
the only wheeled carriage in existence at Fez, 
and was the gift of Queen Victoria. 

These events are succeeded by a few moments 
of silent waiting. Then suddenly the long lines 
of soldiers vibrate under a thrill of religious awe; 
the band, with its great brasses and its drums, 
strikes up a deafening, mournful air. The fifty 
little black slaves run, run as if their lives were 
at stake, deploying from their base like the sticks 
of a fan, resembling bees swarming, or a flock of 
birds. And yonder, in the shadowy light of the 
ogive, upon which all eyes are turned, there ap- 



1 68 Into Morocco. 

pears a tall, brown-faced mannikin, all veiled in 
white muslin, mounted on a splendid white horse 
led in hand by four slaves; over his head is held 
an umbrella of antique form, such an one as must 
have protected the Queen of Sheba, and two 
gigantic negros, one in pink, the other in blue, 
wave fly-flaps around the person of the sovereign. 

While the strange mannikin, or mummy, al- 
most shapeless, but majestic notwithstanding in 
his robes of snowy white, is advancing toward us, 
the music, as if exasperated to madness, wails 
louder and louder, in a shriller key; it strikes 
up a slow and distressful religious air, the time 
of which is accentuated by a frightful beating of 
the bass-drums. The mannikin's horse rears 
wildly, restrained with difficulty by the four 
black slaves, and this music, so mournful and so 
strange to us, affects our nerves with an inde- 
scribable agonizing sensation. 

Here, at last, drawn up close beside us, stands 
this last authentic descendant of Mahomet, 
crossed with Nubian blood. His attire, of the 
finest mousseline-de-laine, is of immaculate white- 
ness. His charger, too, is entirely white, his 
great stirrups are of gold, and his saddle and 
equipments are of a very pale green silk, lightly 
embroidered in a still paler shade of golden 
green. The slaves who hold his horse, the one 



Into Morocco. 169 

who carries the great red umbrella, and the two 
— the pink and blue ones — who shake napkins in 
the monarch's face to drive away imaginary flies, 
are all herculean negros whose countenances are 
wrinkled into fierce smiles ; they are all old men, 
and their gray or white beards contrast with the 
blackness of their features. This ceremonial of 
a bygone age harmonizes with the wailing music, 
could not suit better with the huge walls around 
us, which rear their crumbling summits high in 
the air. 

This man, who thus presents himself before 
us with the surroundings which I have described, 
is the last faithful exponent of a religion, a civil- 
ization that are about to die. He is the person- 
ification, in fact, of ancient Islam ; for it is well 
known that pure Mussulmen look upon the Sul- 
tan of Stamboul almost in the light of a sacri- 
legious usurper and turn their eyes and their 
prayers toward the Moghreb, where dwells the 
man who is in their eyes the true successor of the 
Prophet. 

What result can we expect to attain from an 
embassy to such a man, who, together with his 
people, spends his life torpid and motionless 
among ancient dreams of humanity that have al- 
most disappeared from the surface of the earth ? 
There is not a single point on which we can un- 



170 Into Morocco. 

derstand each other ; the distance between us is 
nearly that which would separate us from a Caliph 
of Cordova or of Bagdad who should come to 
life again after a slumber of a thousand years. 
What do we wish to obtain from him, and why 
have we brought him forth from his impenetrable 
palace ? 

His brown, parchment-like face in its setting 
of white muslin, has regular and noble features ; 
dull, expressionless eyes, the whites of which 
appear beneath the balls that are half concealed 
by the drooping lashes ; his expression is that 
of exceeding melancholy, a supreme lassitude, a 
supreme ennui. He has an appearance of benig- 
nity, and is really kind-hearted, according to 
what they say who know him. (If the people of 
Fez are to be believed, he is even too much so ; 
he does not chop off as many heads as he ought 
for the holy cause of Islam.) But his kind-heart- 
edness, no doubt, is relative in degree, as was 
often the case with ourselves in the middle ages; 
a mildness which is not over-sensitive in the face 
of shedding blood when there is a necessity for 
it, nor in face of a row of human heads set up in 
a row over the fine gateway at the entrance to 
the palace. Assuredly he is not cruel ; he could 
not be so with that gentle, sid expression. He 
punishes with severity sometimes, as his divine 



l7ito Morocco. 171 

authority gives him the right to do, but it is said 
that he finds a still keener pleasure in pardoning. 
He is a priest and a warrior, and carries each of 
these characters, perhaps, to excess ; feeling as 
deeply as a prophet the responsibility of his 
heavenly mission, chaste in the midst of his se- 
raglio, strict in his attention to onerous relig- 
ious observances and hereditarily very much of 
a fanatic, he aims to form himself upon Mahomet 
as perfectly as may be ; all this, moreover, is 
legible in his eyes, upon his fine countenance, in 
the upright majesty of his bearing. He is a man 
whom we can neither understand nor judge in 
the times we live in, but he is surely a great man, 
a man of mark. 

* ♦ 

The minister presents his credentials to the 
Sultaa in a bag of velvet embroidered with gold, 
which is received by one of the fly-drivers. Then 
the customary short speeches are exchanged ; 
that of the minister first, then that of the Sultan 
in reply, declaring his friendship for the French 
nation, spoken in a low tone of voice, with a 
wearied, condescending, extremely gentlemanly 
manner. Then comes the presentation of indi- 
viduals, our salutations, which the sovereign 
acknowledges by a courteous movement of the 



172 Into Morocco. 

head — and it is all over ; the Commander of the 
Faithful has displayed himself sufficiently to 
Nazarenes such as we are. The handsome 
charger with the silken trappings is turned by 
the black slaves, the Scheriffian majesty turns 
his back on us, looking like a tall phantom in his 
cloudy wrappings. The music, which has been 
playing softly while the speeches were going on, 
bursts into a funereal crescendo ; another band 
of pipes and tambourines yelps and squeaks at 
the same time on a higher key ; the artillery 
commences to thunder close to our ears, startling 
the horses ; the Sultan's steed rears and kicks, 
endeavoring to rid liimself of his white mummy, 
who remains impassible ; all the others, the six 
beautiful anirrtals that were led in by the bit, 
make their escape with furious bounds ; the one 
that is harnessed to the state carriage rears up- 
right on his hind legs ; the fifty little black boys 
again run madly hither and thither, without any 
apparent object to their course ; (this is a bit of 
etiquette that is always observed whenever the 
Sultan is on horseback). 

While the bands maintain their exasperating 
crescendo, while the guns continue their deafen- 
ing racket, the Caliph and his suite retire rap- 
idly, like an apparition driven away by an excess 
of noise and stir ; they disappear down yonder 



hito Mo?'occo. 173 

in the shadows of the archway that is bordered 
with arabesques of pink and blue. We behold 
one last plunge of the handsome white steed as 
he tries to the last to shake off his impassible 
rider, then they all disappear, including the red 
umbrella and the fifty choir boys, who pour in 
through the gateway like a wave of the sea. A 
shower begins to come down, and we have to 
run through the tall wet grass after our horses, 
among the red-uniformed negro soldiers, who 
have broken ranks , among all this pitiful army 
of monkeys. A strange riot and disorder suc- 
ceed the religious awe that but lately prevailed 
in this gigantic enclosure of ruinous walls and 
towers. 

>k 

At last we are on horseback again, bound for 
a visit to the palace gardens in company with 
the viziers, as is the custom every time that the 
Sultan receives an embassy. We pass other 
enclosures walled in with battlements of fearful 
height, other ancient ogival gateways with iron- 
bound gates, other walled court-yards where the 
ground is cut up by sewers and quagmires ; the 
whole is extremely old and ruinous, but imposing 
in every case and sinister. The most striking of 
these courts is a parallelogram, two or three 



174 If^io Moi^occo. 

hundred metres long, between battlemented 
walls of at least fifty feet in height. At the 
opposite ends of this court, and placed symmet- 
rically in respect to ench other, are two great 
gateways, freshly whitened and enframed in 
pink and blue arabesques and tiles in mosaic, 
like all the gates of the palace. Each of these 
gates is flanked by four enormous battlemented 
towers, on which has been left, as has been on 
the ramparts, the sombre colors that have been 
given them by the centuries, and which rise in 
steps, the outside towers being much higher 
than the inner ones. No words can give an idea 
of the wild aspect of this place, nor of the de- 
pressing monotony of these lofty far-stretching 
walls, of all these battlements standing out 
against the sky. 

Afterward our way lies between two rows of 
great gray walls, incomplete as yet, which the 
Sultan is building and carrying up to a great 
height, in order that his women folk may be able 
to visit the gardens without being seen from any 
quarter, either from the terraces or from the 
surrounding mountains. We are conscious of a 
sort of solemn chorus emanating from that 
direction, accompanied from time to time by 
something that sounds like muffled drums beaten 
in unison, several at a time. One might think 



Into Morocco. 175 

it was the celebration of a funeral service in 
some one of the mosques — but it is simply 
laborers at their work, arranged in line on the 
crest of a wall of beaten earth. They sing a 
doleful lament in a minor adagio, and at the 
end of each beat, which lasts some fifteen 
seconds, they give a blow to their structure, so 
as to harden the moistened clay, with one of 
those heavy wooden mallets which are called 
''demoiselles "; that is all the work they do, and 
it will go on in the same way until night. They 
turn to look at us as we ride by, and we, too, 
look at them with amusement and astonishment. 
It seems like a wager, a practical joke ; but not 
so ; those people are entirely serious. It seems 
that whenever there is anything to be done for 
the Sultan by day's work, this solemn dawdling 
comes in play. Having passed the enclosed 
space where they are at work, followed by their 
droning melody, we turn in our saddles to have 
another look at them, and think that this time 
we shall be able to catch a rear view. But with 
a comical concerted movement they too have 
turned to watch us, and they resume their work 
to the same cadence, with the same unimagin- 
able deliberateness. 

Passing through one last gate, we enter the 
gardens of the Sultan. Orchards, they should 



176 l7ito Morocco. 

be called rather ; great orchards in an aban- 
doned state, enclosed between ruined walls. 
But orange orchards are they, charming in their 
melancholy desolation and redolent with the 
sweetest odors. The avenues are protected by 
arbors of grape-vine and flagged with marble, 
with antique well-worn flagstones that have 
grown green with time. Golden fruit and white 
blossoms are hanging at the same time from the 
branches of the ancient trees. Underneath 
weeds are growing and in spots the ground be- 
comes marshy, like the savannahs of the south. 
Here and there are old, cheerless kiosques, 
where the Sultan, it seems, comes with his 
women to rest. The arabesques have been ob- 
literated from them by a coat of whitewash. 

A melancholy like that of a graveyard charac- 
terizes the whole place. How many beautiful 
creatures, selected from among the proudest 
families in all the Moghreb, must these orange 
groves have looked down on, as they walked 
here, wearied, faded away and died \ 



Into Morocco. 177 



XXIII. 

Thursday, April i8th. 

ONE of the complications of existence in this 
city is that one can never go out unattended, 
even in Arab dress ; there would be the risk of 
some unpleasant adventure, and then, above all, it 
would not be good form, decorum exacting that 
one should always be preceded by a servant or two, 
stick in hand, to drive the common people from 
one's way. It is impossible, also, to go out on foot, 
from regard for the proprieties in the first place, 
and then, because one does not care to wade 
through mud up to the knees, nor to be driven up 
against the walls of the narrow streets by loaded 
mules or by dashing horsemen. The result is that 
one is a prisoner in his own house for three-fourths 
of the time, owing to the indolence of the servant 
class, the mount ordered to be saddled ready for 
a certain specified time not being forthcoming. 

I breakfast every morning at the minister's, 
in company with the other officers of the em- 
bassy, but it woud be impossible to dine there 
at evening, on account of the return after night- 
fall, and on account of the closing of the gates 



1 78 Into Morocco. 

between the quarter:-;, shutting off all commu- 
nication. 

I have for a neighbor, however, almost at the 
next door, Dr. L., he who was so kind as to 
lend me the house which I inhabit, and we dine 
together every evening. I go to his house on 
foot, walking with my legs well apart, my pa- 
pooches touching the walls on either side of the 
street, so as to steer clear of the black stream 
in the middle. At his door, which is as low and 
dark as mine, I generally knock my head against 
the casing as I enter. After dinner I return, 
preceded by Selim and Mohammed, my two 
servants, with lanterns, to barricade myself at 
eight o'clock in the evening in my house that is 
a thousand years old. The two servants occupy 
the apartment opposite to mine, on the other 
side of my interior court. Behind their cedar 
doors, like mine in every respect, they make tea 
for themselves and sing songs to the accompani- 
ment of the guitar all night long. In the morn- 
ing, when I open my door, they open theirs, say 
good-day, put on their bournouses and go for a 
walk. Neither by love nor money, nor by threats, 
shall I ever succeed in obtaining from them a 
little better service. They generally leave me 
entirely alone in the house, and when I hear the 
distant sound of the heavy knocker on my door, 



Into Moi'occo. 179 

I myself am obliged to descend my turret stair- 
case and open for my visitor. 

If I relate so many trivialities, it is because 
they give the measure of the difficulties of life 
for an European who is lost in Fez, even when 
he is there, as I am, under exceptional conditions 
as regards comfort. 

This morning, like yesterday afternoon, is em- 
ployed in official visits to different personages of 
importance. There is still the same fine cold rain, 
which has been our almost constant companion, 
and which made our visit of yesterday to the 
Sultan's gardens such a cheerless one. 

At the Vizier's and the minister's mansions 
whither we repair on horseback through the dark 
and winding lanes, we are received in those court- 
yards open to the sky, which invariably consti- 
tute the chief luxury of the houses of Fez ; court- 
yards with inlaid pavements, richly ornamented 
with arabesques and surrounded by arched 
passages of complicated design. On other oc- 
casions, our reception takes place in the depths 
of those delightful gloomy gardens, which are 
rather orange groves overrun by weeds, the 
avenues of which, flagged with white stone, are 
sheltered by grape-vine arbors ; the whole sur- 



i8o Into Morocco. 

rounded, of course, by those lofty prison walls 
which are designed to afford invisibility to the 
pretty inhabitants of theharem when they choose 
to take a walk. 

The state dinners will not begin until next 
week ; as yet we have only collations, but they 
are Pantagruelian collations, such as ours used 
to be in the times of the middle-ages. Immense 
bowls of European or Japanese ware are set 
either on tables or on the ground, filled with 
pyramids of fruit, of walnuts removed from their 
shells, of almonds, '^ gazelle's shoes," sweetmeats, 
dates, saffron-bonbons. Veils of gaudy colors, 
with stripes of gold, are thrown over these moun- 
tains of goodies, which would suffice for two 
hundred persons. Blue or pink decorated jugs, 
loaded down with gilding, contain an abominable 
muddy, stinking water, which should not be 
drunk under any circumstances. We are seated 
on rugs and embroidered cushions, or upon 
chairs of a style long out of date, that of the 
Empire or Louis XVI. The service is per- 
formed by black slaves, or by a kind of janis- 
saries armed with long curved swords and with 
pointed tarboiishes on the'r heads. Coffee and 
cigarettes are never served, for the Sultan has 
prohibited their use. In his edict against tobac- 
co, he even went so far as to compare the de- 



Into Morocco. i8i 

praved taste of a smoker to that of a man who 
would eat the flesh of a dead horse. 

There is only tea and the odoriferous smoke, 
slightly intoxicating, too, of that costly Indian 
wood, which is burned before us in chafing- 
dishes. The high Russian samovars are every- 
where, and the same tea, flavored with mint and 
spice and sweetened to excess. It is counted 
good manners to take three cups, and the cus- 
tom is not a pleasant one, for every time that 
there is a new deal, the cups are interchanged 
among the guests without being washed, while 
the dregs which remain in them are mercilessly 
thrown in the teapot. 

During these visits, it is unnecessary to say, 
we see nothing of the women, but we are con- 
stantly observed by them. Every time that we 
chance to turn our heads, we are certain to see 
in some trefoil half concealed in the arabesques 
of the wall, in some narrow peep-hole, or peer- 
ing over some ledge of the terrace, several pairs 
of very long, pointed eyes, watching us curious- 
ly, which vanish, disappear in the darkness, as 
soon as our looks meet. 

These great Moroccan personages who enter- 
tain us all have the air of the world ; beneath 
the folds of their thin white veils they have great 
dignity of carriage and movement ; they are 



1 82 Into Morocco. 

possessed of a certain gentlemanly indolence, 
of a certain indifference to everything. Still it 
is evident that they are not the equals of the 
common people, the fierce, bronzed men of the 
open air. Wealth, the consuming thirst of in- 
creasing fortunes that are already large, and the 
corruption of political life as well, have spoiled 
them. In these early visits upon our arrival, 
our minister says nothing as yet of the affairs 
that require adjustment, but it is easy to see 
that they will not be settled quickly by nothing 
but noting these airs of cunning and mistrust, 
and the feline half-smiles of these white-veiled 
men, who answer questions with gracious cir- 
cumlocution, who seem never to be busy and 
never to be sincere. 

* * 

The son of the Grand Vizier is about to be 
married, and since yesterday all Fez is in an 
uproar over the wedding. Interminable proces- 
sions go and come in the dark lanes, preceded 
by tam-tams, ear-splitting pipes and discharges 
of musketry. We encountered one this morn- 
ing of at least three hundred persons, who were 
firing blank cartridges in the darkness of the 
narrow vaulted passages, shaking the old walls ; 
those at the head of the line were carrying gifts 



Into Morocco. 183 

upon their heads ; they were bulky objects, 
wrapped in stuffs of silk figured with gold. 

The Vizier's mansion, as we saw in the course 
of our visit yesterday afternoon, is magnificently 
decorated for the grand fete. In the court-yai d, 
all mosaics and laced arabesques, were hung 
innumerable chandeliers, so close together as 
actually to touch, absolutely concealing the 
clouded vault of the sky ; all the fine carvings 
on the walls had been picked out afresh with 
gold, blue, pink and green, and magnificent 
hangings of red velvet, embroidered with gold 
in-relievOy were suspended everywhere, reaching 
up as high as the first story ; they were those 
Arab hangings, the designs on which represent. 
series of arches and wreaths, like the doors of the 
mosques. 

In the apartments opening on this court of 
honor, there was a display, a wonderful profu- 
sion, of rich carpets, hangings and cushions of 
brilliant or rare colors, where golden yellows 
and golden greens were intermingled in strange, 
semi-religious designs. The person of the 
Grand Vizier, entirely white in his simple white 
muslins, stood out in relief against all these 
riches ; his handsome, feline, shifting, unreliable 
features encircled in their frame of gray beard. 

Our minister requested to be allowed to see, 



184 Into Morocco. 

not the bride, be it understood, since she was 
still invisible even for her spouse, but the bride- 
groom and the young men of his suite. The 
Vizier consented with a smile, and conducted 
us across a garden to the house prepared for 
the new family ; a house quite new, not finished 
yet, but constructed after the immutable fashion 
of Granada or Cordova, where an army of 
workmen were patiently at work carving the 
arabesques. 

There, seated on divans around a great bare 
room some young men were having a good 
time with tea, sweetmeats and the smoke of 
burning perfumes. The gilded youth of Fez, 
the rising generation, the future Caids and the 
future Viziers, who will perhaps be called on 
some day to witness the downfall of old Mogh- 
reb. Very young, all of them were, but pale, 
emaciated, dejected, sunk deep into their cush- 
ions. The son of the Grand Vizier, dressed in 
green (which is always the color of a groom), 
was apart in a corner, the most gloomy and 
dejected of them all, with an air of absolute 
stupidity, completely done up with lassitude and 
ennui. Half way up to the ceiling of the room 
where these young men were amusing themselves, 
the smoke of the sweet-smelling Indian wood 
liung in a gray cloud. 



Into Morocco. 185 



XXIV. 

Friday, April 19th, (Good Friday). 

IN a few hours, as is always the case in this 
country, the sky has cleared and the atmos- 
phere is vaporless. In place of the masses of 
gray clouds, driven hither and thither and ob- 
scuring ideas and objects, there is an immensely 
deep, limpid void, which is this evening of a 
changing blue, of a blue shading off at the 
horizon into greenish aqua-marine tints ; over 
all things is the great resplendency, the carni- 
val, the magical display, of light. 

At these witching hours of the dying day, I 
mount to my roof-terrace and seat myself there. 
The sombre, fanatical old city lits basking in 
the gold of the exuberant sunshine ; lying 
stretched at my feet over its hills and valleys, 
it has taken on an aspect of unchanging, radiant 
peace, an aspect that is almost cheerful, almost 
peaceful ; it is so changed that I do not recog- 
nize it ; a rosy halo stems to rise from its life- 
less ruins. And the air all at once has become 
so balmy and so soothing, giving illusions of an 
eternal summer ! 

In the immediate foreground, the terraced 



1 86 Into Morocco. 

roofs of the tall adjacent houses surround me in 
groups ; houses outwardly like blocks of stone 
placed irregularly here and there, as if they owed 
their arrangement to chance. There is a void 
between these terraces and my own ; although 
their minutest details, the slightest crack in their 
walls, is distinguished with the utmost clearness, 
they are separated from me by a sort of lumi- 
nous haze which makes them indistinct at their 
foundations and gives them almost an aerial as- 
pect ; they appear as if suspended in the air. 
Gradually all these lofty promenades are filled 
with women, who make their appearance, one 
after the other, rising from the depths below, in 
the most striking costumes, bonneted with the 
" hantouze " (a gilded mitre, recalling the hennin 
worn in the late days of our middle-ages). 

Beyond these nearer terraces, which belong to 
houses built, like my own, on the most elevated 
part of Old Fez — after another void space and 
another interval of misty light, the more distant 
objects are seen stretching away to infinity, as if 
seen through transparencies of gauze. First is 
all the remainder of Old Fez ; a thousand ter- 
races, grayish-violet in hue, where the fair prom- 
enaders seem to be mere points of bright color 
scattered here and there upon a monotonous suc- 
cession of ruins. Rising above these stone 



Into Morocco. 187 

blocks, so uniform in shape, are seen some tall 
and slender palm trees ; and, as well, all the old 
square towers of the mosques, with their inser- 
tions of green and yellow tiles that have been 
baked and rebaked by the suns of centuries, 
with their small cupolas, surmounted each by a 
gilded ball. 

Of New Fez, which is more distant, there can 
only be distinguished the forbidding walls which 
enclose the seraglios, the palaces and the court- 
yards of the Sultan. And a belt of verdant gar- 
dens, in the freshest green of Spring, surrounds 
the great city ; its old ramparts, its old bastions, 
its formidable old towers, are all drowned, as it 
were, in this ocean of fresh verdure. 

The atmosphere is clear, surprisingly clear. 
Notwithstanding this illusory haze, which is of a 
bluish tint on the low grounds and of a golden 
pink upon the summits, distant objects are dis- 
cernible as if they had been brought near by a 
glass, or as if the faculty of sight had been 
endowed this evening with unaccustomed pen- 
etration. 

Down below us are Karaouin and Mouley- 
Driss, the two great holy mosques, which only to 
name, before my coming here, caused me to 
shudder as at the mention of some great mys- 
teries. I look down upon their minarets, upon 



1 88 Into Morocco. 

their roofs covered with green tiles like the roofs 
of the Alhambra ; seen tlms, in full daylight, in 
the calm of this beautiful evening, they no longer 
seem to be objects of dread, they no longer seem 
to be the awful sanctuaries that they are, and, 
in the same way, all this great city, standing in 
its enclosure of verdurous gardens, so peaceful 
under the softening influence of this pure golden 
pink light, ceases to impress us as being, as it 
really is, the city of savage religious gloom ; 
makes us forget all the mysteriously immutable 
things that are contained within its precincts. 
It is difficult to realize that this can be the 
walled-in heart of Islam, the lonely Mecca of the 
Moghreb, without roads to communicate with 
the outside world. 

Still farther beyond, beyond the ramparts and 
the gardens, the gigantic ampliitheatre of the 
mountains is also basking in the light ; the 
smallest valleys, the slightest folds can be 
counted this evening ; everything that is going 
on there can be seen as if through a telescope. 
Here and there caravans, infinitely small in the 
distance, are journeying to the Soudan or toward 
Europe. Toward the east, in the direction 
where the last rays of the sun strike full, there is 
a region of burying-grounds and ruins ; the first 
slopes adjacent to the city are covered with the 



Into Morocco. 189 

rubbish of fallen walls, with " koubas " of holy 
men, with innumerable tombs, and as it is Fri- 
day (the Mahometan Sunday), the day set apart 
for paying pious visits to the dead, these ceme- 
teries are filled with people ; the visitors, in gray 
bournouses, as they move about among the 
stones, when seen from so great a distance, seem 
to be other stones endowed with the faculty of 
movement. High up, the summits are of a bright 
rose color, with folds of shadow that are abso- 
lutely blue. Towering higher still and still more 
far away, the Great Atlas, wrapped in its glitter- 
ing snows, of still another shade of rose, paler 
and more transparent, boldly projects its back 
against the clear yellow tones which are begin- 
ning to trench upon and replace the vanishing 
blue of the sky. 

To the west, and quite near us, a lofty moun- 
tain rises like a serrated screen between us and 
the sun, casting its shadow upon a portion of the 
city. It is intersected by valleys running ob- 
liquely from its summit to its base, and with its 
sharply defined crest, is not unlike an enormous 
wave of the sea that has been arrested there in 
its advance upon the city. We feel that on its 
far slope we would still be in the full splendor 
of the sunlight ; its profile is made more distinct 
by a bordering of light. 



190 Into Morocco. 

Flocks of dark-colored birds are wheeling in 
the air above the terraces, and great storks also 
float by with easy flight in the golden-green sky. 

* * 

It is Good Friday ; a season when, in our 
country, the fickle Spring generally hides her 
face in clouds, so that the expression is often 
used ; "Good Friday weather," to express a 
cloudy, windy day. But the city in which I am 
does not put on those Christian weeds, nor rec- 
ognize the cause for which Christians mourn on 
that day, and this evening she is voluptuously 
basking in the calm warm air, beneath a sky 
lighted up as if for a fete. 

Then again Friday in Mahometan countries is 
for the people, as Sunday is with us, a day of 
rest, a day for the display of their best attire, and 
so the women, more numerous and more gayly 
dressed than usual, make their appearance at the 
little doors of the belvederes which protect the 
tops of the staircases of their dwellings, and come 
forth upon the roofs, shaking their plumes like 
birds, and everywhere enamelling the old gray 
terraces with their brilliant costumes. 

Gray are they, all these terraces, or rather 
devoid of color ; of a dead, neutral bhade, 
changing constantly under the influence of the 



Ifito More 



191 



weather and the sky. They have been white- 
washed again and again from time immemorial, 
until they have lost their original shape beneath 
the repeated coatings ; baking in the sunlight, 
calcining under the scorching heat, guttered by 
the rains, until they have become almost of a 
blackish hue. They are not very cheerful, these 
elevated places where the women resort. Every- 
where, on my terrace as well as on those of my 
pretty neighbors, the little old low walls on 
which we lean our elbows and which serve as 
parapets to keep us from falling into the gulf, 
are crowned with lichens, saxifrage and small 
yellow flowers. 

The women collect in groups, or seat them- 
selves and chat upon the ledges of the walls, 
with their legs overhanging the court-yards or 
the streets, or else throw themselves back and 
stretch out in careless attitudes with their fin- 
gers interlaced behind their heads. They climb 
from house to house to exchange visits, some- 
times by the assistance of small ladders, or of 
a bridge improvised from a plank. The ne- 
gresses are sculpturesque in form ; they wear 
great silver rings in their ears, are dressed in 
white or pink, and their black faces are sur- 
rounded by kerchiefs of silk ; their gaiety has 
something monkeyish about it, and their cheer- 



192 Into Morocco. 

fill voices are shrill and creaking as a child's 
rattle. Their mistresses, the white Arab ladies, 
wear tunics of silk figured with gold, the colors 
of which are softened with embroidery of tulle ; 
their long wide sleeves expose their fine arms 
which are encircled with bracelets ; their busts 
are sustained by wide belts of silk worked with 
gold, as stiff as bunds of cardboard ; on the 
forehead there is a head-dress composed of a 
double row of gold sequins, or of pearls, or of 
other precious stone^, and surmounting all is 
the ''hantouze," or tall mitre, around which are 
always wreathed handkerchiefs of golden gauze, 
the ends of which hang down belund the back 
and mingle with the masses of the loosened 
hair. Their open lips disclose rows of white 
teeth, and they walk with a voluptuously slow 
motion, with their head thrown proudly back 
and with somewhat of a swing. Their eyes, 
very black and already sufficiently large, are 
brought nearer together and prolonged in the 
direction of the temples by the use of antimony; 
many of them are painted, not carmine, but 
pure Vermillion, as if they were trying to see 
how unnatural they could make themselves ; 
their cheeks seem to have been coated with a 
thick paste of red-led, and their arms and fore- 
heads are tatooed in blue. 



hito M or oca 193 

All this luxury obligingly exposes itself up here 
to the daylight, wliich, as often as business or 
pleasure demands a promenade in the narrow- 
muddy streets, veils itself in grayish white and 
assumes the appearance of a mysterious phantom. 
The city, which appears so black and sullen to one 
who traverses it with eyes cast down, displays 
all the elegance of its feminine life on the house- 
tops at these golden hours at the close of day. 
Mistresses and slaves associate together without 
distinction of caste, with an appearance of per- 
fect equality, laughing and joking together and 
frequently walking arm in arm. Those visages 
which are so carefully concealed in the street, 
are never veiled here, and as a consequence men 
are never allowed upon the terraces of Fez. I 
am committing a great breach of etiquette by 

remaining seated upon mine But then I am 

a foreigner, and I can make believe that I did 
not know any better. 

However, the gold is losing its brightness, is 
everywhere fading ; that rosy limpidity which 
was just now illuminating the religious city is 
ascending by degrees toward the upper regions 
of the atmosphere ; the summits of the towers 
alone, and the most elevated terraces continue 
to reflect the light ; a violet shadow commences 
to spread over the distant places, in the valleys 



194 J^'^^(^ Morocco. 

and low-lying grounds. Soon the hour will 
strike for the fifth and last prayer of the day, 
the holy hour, the hour of the Moghreb . . .And 
all the womens' heads are turned in the direc- 
tion of the venerable mosque of Mouley-Driss, 
as if waiting for some pious signal. 

There is for me a magic, and an irresistible 
charm simply in the sound of that word: the 
Moghreb. Moghreb means at the same time the 
west, the setting sun, and the moment when the 
great luminary ends his diurnal existence. It 
also signifies the Empire of Morocco, which is the 
most western of all the lands of Islam, where 
the great impulse which Mahomet imparted to 
the Arabs faded out and died. Above all else, 
it signifies that last prayer which, from one end 
of the Mussulman world to the other, is recited 
at this hour of the evening — a prayer which 
has its beginning at Mecca and spreads, like a 
slowly burning train of powder, with universal 
prostration, across the whole of Africa, as the 
sun slowly sinks below the horizon — to cease 
only when it confronts the ocean, among the 
utmost sand-hills of the Sahara, where Africa 
itself ends. 



Into Morocco. 195 

Everywhere the gold begins to grow dull. 
Fez is already sunk in the shadow of its great 
mountains ; nearer Fez is drowning in this violet 
mist which has risen little by little, like a rising 
tide — and the more distant Fez is scarcely dis- 
tinguishable. The snows on the summits of Atlas 
alone preserve, for one last fleeting moment, 
their rosy brightness. Then a white flag is run 
up to the top of the minaret of Mouley-Driss. 
In instantaneous response, other white flags are 
displayed from all the minarets of the other 
mosques : 

— " Allah Akbar ! " A great cry of unques- 
tioning faith runs through the great city, 

— " Allah Akbar ! " To your knees, every 
believer ! To your knees, in the streets, in the 
mosques, on your door-steps, in the fields : it is 
the holy hour of the Moghreb ! 

— "Allah Akbar ! " From all the min- 
arets the muezzins, placing their hands to their 
riouth, repeated the long-drawn wailing cry to 
the four points of the compass, their shrill voices 
dying mournfully away, like the howling of 
wolves. 

All is quiet ; the sun has set. A vapor of 
deeper violet makes the void space between the 
houses still more conspicuous; they seem to with- 
draw from each other, to draw away from me 



196 Into Morocco. 

with their groups of women who no longer move 

about Silence falls upon the city after that 

great prayer. 

It is night, the stars are shining. Nothing is 
any longer visible. Only higher up, on the ter- 
race which overlooks mine, there is a woman 
standing at the corner of the roof, a shadow 
faintly relieved against the darkness of the 
sky, planted firmly on her feet, with her hands 
behind her back, contemplating, I know not what, 
in the dark gulf below. 

XXV. 

Saturday, April 20th. 

THERE was a fight last night in the camp 
which is forming outside the walls for the 
Sultan's approaching expedition. The subject 
of dispute was a mule to which two squadrons 
laid claim. There was firing from midnight 
until one o'clock, and there were twenty wounded 
and four killed, whom we saw carried off in a 
heap on a litter. 

The splendid weather and the festival of light 
still continue. The sky is of a pure indigo blue, 
and the heat is increasing, delightful odors, 
whiffs from the orange-flowers in the gardens, 



Into Morocco, 197 

mingle with the bad smells of the city. I am 
becoming accustomed to my little house, and it 
is ceasing to have a sinister aspect in my eyes. 
In the portion which I inhabit, I have caused 
the tiled floors to be washed and have had the 
walls whitewashed anew. (I have discovered 
more little doors in out of the way corners, lead- 
ing to passage-ways, obscure nooks and dun- 
geons ; this would be an excellent place in case 
there was a person that one wanted to get rid of.) 
My little low door, with its iron-work of the year 
one thousand, seems very natural to me now, 
and I have ceased to wonder at my dark narrow 
street ; I am becoming acquainted with my 
quarter, and my neighbors, also, are beginning to 
know me and do not observe me so closely. Al- 
though it is not the correct thing to do, and is 
annoying to the pretty ladies of the neighborhood, 
I am commencing to spend more of my time 
upon my terrace, especially at the holy hour of 
the Moghreb, when the white flags are hoisted 
on the mosques, when the muezzins appear on 
the minarets to chant the prayer and the great 
mountains drape themselves in their evening 
shades of violet and pink. 

I have learned who that neighbor is whose 
house is so tangled up with mine. He is a very 
wealthy personage, an amin^ something like a pay- 



198 Into Morocco. 

master-general in the army of the Sultan. I have 
heard the noise of pounding in his house every 
morning and evening, so regularly continuous 
that it puzzled me vastly; I have discovered that 
it was sugar and cinnamon, being crushed to make 
candy for his children, who are very numerous. 
The restricted life of this country has aspects of 
great patriarchal amiability when it can be 
viewed close by. In the evening the voices of 
the wives and children of this aniin reach me 
through the walls and keep me company. 

I am becoming accustomed to my long Arab 
robes, and am learning the correct manner of 
holding my hands in my veils and draping my 
bournous. And very often I return to the vicin- 
ity of the mosque of Karaouin, dragging my slip- 
pers through the labyrinth of the bazaar, which 
has assumed such a different aspect, under this 
bright sun, from that under which we regarded 
it in the first days of our arrival. 

This evening, accompanied by my usual com- 
panion. Captain H. de V , both of us dressed as 
Arabs, I took my way to the slave market. The 
desolate courtyard was untenanted. To our 
enquiry as to whether there would be any busi- 
ness done this evening (for it is generally at 



Into Morocco. 199 

nightfall, after the hour of the Moghreb, that 
the slaves .and the buyers and sellers resort 
to this place), the answer was returned: "We do 
not know ; but there is still that negro woman in 
the cor7ier there, who is for sale'' 

The negress was seated at the edge of one of 
those recesses which are excavated in the thick- 
ness of the old walls, like dens of animals ; her 
attitude was one of great dread and terror, her 
head, enveloped in its grayish veil, and her 
closely covered face falling forward upon her 
breast ; as she saw us approaching, fearful, no 
doubt, that we were coming to buy her, she 
seemed to try to make herself smaller still. We 
made her arise so that we might look at her, as 
it is the custom to do with this kind of mer- 
chandise. We found that she was a little girl, 
sixteen to eighteen years old, whose tearful eyes 
bore an expression of resignation in the midst of 
a limitless despair ; she was twisting her veil in 
her hands and kept her eyes directed toward the 
ground. What a pitiful sight it was, this poor 
little creature, who had meekly arisen to allow 
us to examine her and who was awaiting her fate 
in this gloomy place. Beside her, seated in the 
same recess, was an elderly lady, her face care- 
fully concealed in her veil, who, notwithstand- 
ing her unpretending dress, was evidently of the 



200 



Into Morocco. 



upper class. This was the mistress, who had 
brought the girl here for sale. We enquired the 
price : five hundred francs. And the poor old 
lady, with tears in her eyes and an expression 
almost as sad as that of her slave, explained to 
us how she had bought the child when very 
young and brought her up, but that now, being 
reduced to poverty by the death of her husband, 
she could no longer support her and was obliged 
to part with her. And thus it was that the two 
women were here waiting to find a purchaser, with 
a shrinking, humiliated air, both equally discon- 
"solate. It was like a mother offering her daugh- 
ter for sale. 



* 
* * 



At Fez, it is unnecessary to say, one never goes 
out at night unless compelled to. It is always 
blackest night in the little narroAv, overhung 
streets as soon as it is eight o'clock, and one 
would run the risk of tumbling into the sewers, 
or the wells, or the old dungeons whose open- 
ings yawn here and there. 

This evening, however, we are all to go to the 
palace, and orders have been given to leave the 
gates between the quarters open for our passage. 

The time of our departure is fixed for half-past 
eight, from the residence of the minister. We 



Into Morocco.. 201 

are mounted on restive mules, and accompanied 
by the inevitable red infantry with fixed bayo- 
nets and carrying great lanterns, the panels of 
which are cut out in ogives, like the doors of the 
mosques. 

Our way at first lies through the quarter of 
gardens, zig-zagging in the dark among the low 
walls, over which protrude branches of orange 
trees with their loads of perfumed blossoms ; 
then we traverse a corner of the covered bazaar; 
then through streecs with break-neck pavement, 
where a few lights are burning yet in the sleepy 
little shops. Then a wide dark street between 
long ruinous walls. Arabs, wrapped for the 
night in their bournouses, are sleeping on the 
ground along with the dogs, and we are near 
riding over them. At last the gates of the first 
enclosure of the palace are before us, guarded 
by soldiers with drawn swords ; the massive 
doors, strengthened by heavy iron-work, have 
been left open for our benefit. By the light of 
the lanterns, we pass through the immense courts 
that are already familiar to us ; those solitary 
spots, where are cesspools and quagmires, lying 
between the gigantic walls which point their 
battlements toward the starry sky, like rows of 
black combs. Everywhere in these wild pre- 
cincts guards are stationed, sword in hand. We 



202 Into Morocco. 

feel that there is not an excessive hospitality in 
the place which we are visiting. 

At last we reach the courtyard of the Ambas- 
sadors, the most extensive of all. Here the 
space is greater, consequently tlie darkness is not 
so intense. The frogs, accompanied by some 
katydids, are having a noisy concert. Down 
yonder in the distance we descry other lanterns 
moving about, and we direct our steps in their 
direction. By their light we are able to discern 
the grave personages who are awaiting us : high 
officers of the palace, viziers and cadis. They 
are to witness some experiments which we are to 
make with gifts that we have brought with us for 
the ladies of the seraglio ; bouquets of electric 
flowers, electric trinkets, stars and cresents to 
be worn in the hair of these invisible beauties. 
We are told that the Sultan himself is roaming 
about, concealed by the gloom which envelopes 
us all, so as to see without being seen ; that per- 
haps he will even go so far as to show himself if 
the experiments interest him. We keep a close 
watch on the scattered lights which are moving 
to and fro in the distance of the court, hoping 
every moment for the holy apparition. But no ; 
the Caliph, no doubt, does not find himself suffi- 
ciently interested to break through his reserve. 

The batteries are along time getting ready; 



l7ito Morocco. 203 

they seem to be ill-natured toward the display. 
The little nineteenth-century toys are at last 
lighted up, after considerable difficulty, glitter- 
ing like fire-flies in the darkness of their imme- 
morial surroundings. 

Sunday, April 21st, (Easter Sunday). 

The weather bright and splendid, growing 
warmer ; the perfumed breath of the orange 
trees and the odor of dead animals hang more 
heavily in the air. It is delightfully pleasant in 
the garden of our- minister's house, and we re- 
main seated there for a long time every day after 
breakfast, in front of the old pavilion, of which 
the arabesques have been obliterated by coats of 
whitewash ; the great orange trees, with their 
white flowers and golden fruit, stand out boldly 
above our heads against the blue of the sky, and 
the sound of the water gushing from its marble 
basin and running away over the stone floor 
gives a voluptuous sensation of coolness. 

* * 

The day was devoted, in company with H. de 
v., both of us in Arab dress, to exploring the ba- 
zaar ; we mingle more and more with these 
crowded assemblages, where the people now 



204 Into Mo7'oc:o. 

scarcely ])ay us any attention, so correct an J 
natural is our attire in all details. W'e do not 
experience so much difficulty as we did in find- 
ing our way in tliis bazaar, among this labyrinth 
of lanes covered over with hurdles of reeds and 
trellises of grape-vines, where the white-cowled 
purchasers circulate among the dark little shops 
in which is the glitter of arms, of silk and of gold. 

At evening, in the twilight of the holy hour of 
the Moghreb, a whole band of young negresses 
is brouglit to the slave market. They were 
captured recently in the Soudan, and their hair 
still retains its plastering of sticky gum, and they 
wear on their necks and arms the rude orna- 
ments of their distant country. Old men, white 
as snow, whose dress shows that they are of the 
wealthy class, examine them, feel of them, 
stretch their arms and open their mouths to look 
at their teeth. They find no one to buy them, 
and the merchant marches them back home, a 
melancholy troop wnth hanging heads. They 
gaze at me as they pass, and merely by their 
touch and by their odor they recall to my m.vid 
Senegal, and with it a whole flood of memo>^s 
that were dead. 



Into Morocco. 205 

By the fading light of day, I behold from my 
housetop great storm-clouds slowly creeping up 
the sky, the presage of the end of our fine 
weather. I'hey are of a dull copper color, under 
which the thousands of terraces take on tints of 
cold gray, almost blue. 

How quickly the view has familiarized itself to 
me that is to be had from here over the old city 
— from whence arises no sound of rolling vehi- 
cles or clanking machinery — only a confused 
murmuring of human voices, the 'neighing of 
horses, and the din of ancient industries ; the 
weaving of cloth or the hammering of brass. 

I have come to know by heart all the ins and 
outs of this life on the housetops at eventide. 
I know all my fair neighbors who come forth 
from their little doorways, one after another, seat 
themselves, and remain thtre, queer little splashes 
of bright color against the monotony of gray 
back ground, until the twilight hour when the 
green tiles of the mosques themselves become 
gray, and everything is confounded and SAvallowed 
up in shadow. There is a certain beautiful lady, 
generally dressed in a blue robe with a yellow 
hennin, who makes her appearance followed by a 
negrcss in an orange-colored dress, bearing a 
small ladder, by the aid of which the mistress 
climbs to the adjacent roof where she disappears. 



2o6 Into Mojocco. • 

There is another, down in the direction of Kara- 
ouin, who does her climbing unassisted, raising 
her feet very high and crossing a street with a 
single stride, in order to reach a house higher 
than her own and visit her friends, of whom there 
are ten or so, black as well as white. I know 
where the storks' nests are, who stand motionless 
on their long legs and clash their bills together. 
I am even acquainted with the different cats of 
the vicinity, who exchange visits just as the 
ladies do, climbing the terrace-walls and jumping 
across the streets. Finally, too, those flocks of 
black, yellow-beaked birds are not unknown to 
me, like blackbirds they are, which wheel in 
swift pursuit of each other .in eddying circles as 
long as daylight lasts, just as the martins do in 
our country. 

* 

* * 

A **Tholba"of the mosque of Karaouin, a 
very pleasant sort of a tholba who condescends 
to interest himself as to European matters, is my 
occasional companion when I loiter upon the 
terraces ; but as he is a Mussulman and a citizen 
of Fez, he conceals himself behind a wall so that 
he may not be seen by the ladies. This evening 
he made me climb, a roof in order to show me 
my street, which I had never seen from such an 



Ifito Morocco. 207 

elevation ; at the point to which we ascended it 
was only some eight inches in width, so closely 
do the houses approach each other at the top. 
It would have been perfectly easy to step across 
it to go and pay a visit to the ladies of the neigh- 
borhood ; it seemed nothing more than a cleft, 
a black fissure, at the bottom of which, as in a 
well, people, who looked like ghosts, were drag- 
ging their papooches through the filth. In strong 
contrast, here on the roofs, all was light, brilliant 
toilettes, merry chatter of women, careless enjoy- 
ment, space and pure air. 

* * 

This tholba is really quite modern in his ideas, 
very much of a student (according to our ideas 
of students) in his manner of looking at youth, 
in his prepossession for women and pleasure. 
He is evidently an exceptional person among 
the tholbas, and thanks to him, I shall soon 
have a very faithful impression of the fast life 
of this country. 

I should never have imagined that, in all 
Africa, Fez was the city in which it is most 
possible to lead a life of this description. The 
reason is that, in addition to so many lioly per- 
sonages, there is a great number of merchants 
of all sorts ; a certain feverish desire for wealth, 



2o8 Into Moj'ccco. 

though very different from that wliich afflicts 
our people, rages within these walls ; men 
who have grown rich too suddenly — for in- 
stance, at the return from the Soudan of a cara- 
van that has turned out well — make haste to 
enjoy life, and marry several young girls ; the 
next year they are ruined, and divorcing them- 
selves, they clear out, leaving their wives to 
take care of themselves. In this way Fez is 
filled with divorced wives, who live as best they 
may. Some of them live apart, tolerated by 
the caids of the several quarters, and become 
elegantes of equivocal reputation, wearing a tall 
gilt tiara. Others, fallen to a lower depth, 
associate themselves together under the pat- 
ronage of some elderly matron ; but the houses 
of this latter class are always dangerous resorts, 
and their location is confined to the farther 
bank of the Oued-Fez (the stream which sup- 
plies the fountains and flushes the gutters, run- 
ning for almost its entire length underground). 
This river, which in its later course waters the 
Sultan's orange trees, so frequently brings down 
corpses on its current, thanks to these ladies, 
that it has been found necessary to stretch a 
strong network of wire across it before it reaches 
the royal gardens. 

It seems that the irresistible manner — to say 



Ijito Morocco. 209 

nothing of its being traditional and almost obli- 
gatory — of getting into the good graces of a 
handsome divorced woman, is to present her 
with a loaf of sugar. No one can imagine what 
a sweet tooth the people of Morocco — men and 
women — have. If, then, a mysterious gentleman 
is seen slinking along the walls at night-fall, try- 
ing to conceal a loaf of sugar beneath his bour- 
nous, there is very good reason to doubt the 
purity of his intentions. 

Who would believe that such pitiable, droll 
little things could occur in such a city as this ? 

XXVI. 

Monday, April 22nd. 

THE vizier Minister of War, Si-Mohammed- 
ben -el- Arbi, has invited us to breakfast. 
It rained in torrents all night, and it is raining 
still as we plod slowly along on horseback, 
scraping the walls with our knees at every step 
in the narrow lanes, and crowding the foot pas- 
sengers in their gray woolen hoods into the 
doorways. We pursue our way for half an hour 
through the windings of the labyrinth, which 
has again assumed its desolate, rainy-day look, 
escorted by soldiers, and every now and then 
obliged to bend down upon our horses' neck 



2IO Into Morocco. 

when we come to some dark low archway. 
Again we distribute about us in showers ihat 
sticky, foul-smelling mud of which there is 
always a fresh supply in Fez as soon as rain 
falls. 

We dismount in a puddle of water in front of 
a wretched little narrow doorway, which forms 
the entrance for this vizier. The first passage- 
ways of his dwelling, as we enter, paved with 
white and green tiles, wind in and out, in order 
that the interior may not be seen from the gate- 
way. But there is a large gate at the end of the 
passage, which, when thrown open, offers to our 
eyes an unexpected spectacle of magnificence ; 
a great courtyard of imposing dimensions, with 
ornamental porticos, with delicate carvings of 
which the effect is enhanced by gilding and 
bright colors ; a strange, slow, solemn music, 
played and sung by an unseen orchestra and 
choir ; people in costumes of fairy-land, coming 
toward us over the marble flagging of the floor. 

When the Alhambra was inhabited and teem- 
ing with life and color, I think that scenes like 
this might have been witnessed there. Perhaps 
the colors here, the gold, the blues, the reds, are 
a little too bright, because the house, for a won- 
der, is new, but notwithstanding that, the gen- 
eral effect is perfectly harmonious. We see such 



Into Morocco. . 211 

scenery and such costumes at the theatre ; what 
astonishes us is that such things should form 
part of actual life at the present day. 
- The courtyard is a long, very extensive par- 
allelogram ; it is enclosed by lofty walls of im- 
maculate whiteness, at the top of which, in their 
entire length, runs a frieze of blue and pink ara- 
besques and a row of tiles in green earthenware ; 
in the centre a fountain springs from a circular 
basin, and the splashing of the water, as it falls 
in a thin cascade, mingles with the unseen sol- 
emn music. A kind of awning, constructed of 
cedar-wood and projecting far into the court, 
extends the entire length of both the two longer 
sides of the parallelogram ; the bright red in 
which they are painted contrasts strikingly with 
the white walls, and they are ornamented with 
great rosettes of blue and gold of an extremely 
involved pattern. They serve to shelter a num- 
ber of ogive doors, the glass in which is cov- 
ered on the inside by muslin curtains, behind 
which we can hear the \vhispering of the women 
Avho are watching us from their hiding-place. 

In the middle of the two narrower sides of the 
rectangle, those which are naturally most remote 
the one from the other, are monumental doors, 
which are wonders of form and color. The 
lower arch is festooned with stalactites of snowy 



212 Into Morocco. 

white, which hang down in clusters and seem tu 
depend from each other in an entanglement like 
that of crystals of hoar-frost. Above their long 
pendants there is a second lance-shaped arch, 
picked out in red, blue, and gold, and higher 
still, an indescribable piece of work crowns the 
whole and rises to the very summit of the wall ; 
it is composed of fine arabesques in polyclirome, 
inwoven with gold ; it is an expanse, towering 
high aloft, of that marvellous lace-work which 
was formerly woven in pink stucco at Granada, 
on the walls of the Alhambra. The two leaves 
of these tall doors are opened to their full 
width ; they are covered as to their entire sur- 
face with painted and gilded rosettes of kaleido- 
scopic hues, like an unfolded peacock's tail, 
their dominant color being a metallic green. 

These two great doors face each other at the 
opposite ends of the courtyard ; they have long 
curtains, divided in the middle, of pale blue and 
light red cloth, bordered with gold, upon which 
the fretwork of the stalactites stands out whiter 
still. These curtains are raised and permit us to 
see within the customary luxury of carpets, 
cushions and gold-embroidered silks. 

Of the persons who come forward to welcome 
us in this magnificent courtyard, the first are the 
Vizier of War, with a face like an Egyptian 



Into Morocco. 213 

sphinx, and the principal heads of the army. 
Behind them come black slaves, male and female, 
tricked out with necklaces and great earrings and 
finger-rings. The whole company glide noise- 
lessly over the marble floor in their slippers, to 
the slow rhythm of the music, which is accom- 
panied by iron castanets. 

Passing under the stalactites of the farther of 
the two doors, we enter with our hosts an apart- 
ment furnished in European style, but furnished 
so quaintly ; high-post bedsteads with draperies 
of pink and peacock blue brocade, gilded arm- 
chairs covered with figured stuffs, and on the 
walls whitewash and arabesques. On silver 
salvers, lying on the floor, are Spanish boxes 
in the form of Gothic shrines, filled with bon- 
bons. 

The music is in an adjoining apartment, quite 
near us. The singers, as usual, use very high 
falsetto tones, which bring to mind the religious 
offices that are sung in the Sistine chapel ; the 
stringed orchestra produces powerful effects of 
sound. The same motives are constantly re- 
curred to, taken up again and again wiih a sort 
of graduated and increasing exaltation. 

Among these great white-draped Arabs there 
is an extraordinary little object, clad in a great 
profusion of colors, who seems to be the object 



214 Into Morocco. 

of a great deal of flattery. It is a child of seven 
or eight years, the favorite son of the Vizier by 
one of his black slaves. (In Morocco, such child- 
ren have the same position in the family as those 
of the white wives, and this is one of the causes 
of the deterioration of the Arab race, as it be- 
comes more and more mixed with Nubian blood.) 
He is dressed in a robe of pale yellow, over 
which is a surplice of white gauze and a bour- 
nous of pale blue ; a wide green belt sustains a 
small Koran in a bag of network ; his feet are 
protected by orange-colored slippers worked in 
violet and gold. He has a charming funny little 
face, half Arab, half negro, and the pupils of his 
eyes in their setting of bluish white are in con- 
stant rapid motion. 

The musicians in the adjoining room, some 
twenty in number, are seated on cushions upon 
the ground and are all in their holiday attire of 
many colors. Each of them plays and sings at 
the same time, the head thrown back, the mouths 
wide open, in a sort of ecstasy. Some of them 
have great mandolins of inlaid wood, touching the 
strings with small pieces of wood; others have 
violins inlaid with mother-of-pearl ; they play on 
them with very large curved bows, which are 
ornamented with designs in mother-of-pearl and 
ebony in imitation of serpents' scales. These 



I Into Morocco. 215 

violins are shaped like great calashes, with ends 
turned up like the prow of a ship. 

The breakfast table is set in the apartment op- 
posite to that in which our reception took place, 
behind the other garland of stalactites, at the 
other end of the courtyard, through which we 
shall have to pass again in the open air. The 
meal is a little in European style ; as wine is not 
allowed, it is replaced by tea, which the servants 
prepare as it is wanted in tall silver samovars. 
The dishes are of Japanese ware, the glassware 
is decorated and gilded ; the general effect, 
which, with us, would be loud and common- 
place, is here good, in such a brilliancy of color. 

The courses are something like twenty-two in 
number. The black slaves lose their wits and 
scamper about the courtyard in all directions. 
The dishes are so large and bountifully filled 
that one man has difficulty in carrying them ; 
there are wliole quarters of mutton, pyramids of 
chickens, fish piled up in mountain-like heaps, 
and the cous-couss might suffice for ogres. 
They are all brought from the kitchens under 
,those great indispensable cones of esparto decked 
with ornamentation of red, and all these cones 
are heaped up on the ground in the court, form- 
ing something that looks like a deposit of gigan- 
tic Chinese hats. The music continues to play 



2i6 Into Morocco. 

during the long protracted banquet. As we 
breakfast, our eyes are constantly fixed on the 
lofty doorway and the handsome marble court, 
with its fountain, its whitened walls and its mul- 
ticolored arabesques ; and now the summit of its 
walls begins to be crowded with women's faces, 
curious to catch a glimpse of us, even at a dis- 
tance. They are on the terrace walks, no doubt, 
concealed behind the walls ; we can only see the 
tall tiaras that they wear as head-dress, their 
foreheads and aline of shadowy eyes ; they are 
like great cats on the lookout. And others of 
them are continually popping up. 

XXVII. 

Tuesday, April 23d. 

THERE is a rumor current that the Sul- 
tan of the Tholbas abandoned his kingdom 
last night. 

He was the king of a day, in his improvised 
canvas city, a little beyond the walls ; he had a 
mock battery at the door of his tent, the guns 
made of wood in imitation of artillery. He was 
in some respects Like our Pope of the Fools of the 
middle-ages, but with more dignity attaching to 
his office. 

In the university of Fez, where everthing re- 



Into Morocco. 217 

mains substantially as it was in the days of 
Arabian glory, it is an extremely ancient custom 
for the students, every year at the time of the 
spring vacation, to hold high carnival for a space 
of ten days. They choose themselves a king 
(the dignity is put up at auction and goes to the 
highest bidder in consideration of many broad 
pieces), go into camp with him on the banks of 
the river, and then lay the city under contribu- 
tion in order that they may have a good time 
every night with music, singing, cous-couss and 
tea. The people join in these amusements with 
good grace, cheerfully submissive to the exac- 
tions ; they all come to visit the camp of the 
Tholbas and bring their presents ; viziers, mer- 
chants, and the tradesmen in their associations, 
with their banners flying. Finally, about the 
eighth day, comes the Sultan in person, the gen- 
uine one, to pay homage to the elective monarch 
of the students ; the latter receives him as if he 
himself were a caliph, on horseback, with an um- 
brella carried over him, treats with him on a 
footing of equality, addressing him as "my 
brother." 

The Sultan of the Tholbas always comes from 
some of the distant tribes, and is one who has 
some supreme favor to ask, either for himself or 
for his people, and profits by this singular tete- 



2i8 Into Morocco. 

a-tete with his sovereign to obtain it. As soon 
as he has received it, for fear lest it may be taken 
away again, as well as from the fear of reprisals 
on the part of those whom he has caused to be 
soundly l;eaten while he was enjoying his brief 
authority, he silently steals away some fine night, 
a thing which is easily done in Morocco ; he 
makes tracks for his own country across the de- 
serted fields. 

When these merry days are over, the students 
return to Fez ; those who have not ended their 
studies go back to their cells in those poverty- 
stricken cloisters, which are called medercas, and 
which are almost holy places, infidels not being 
allowed to put foot there ; here the Sultan sends 
a loaf of bread to each one of them daily, and 
this is almost their entire sustenance. There are 
some who also receive the hospitality of private 
houses, and it is considered very meritorious to 
lodge and board a Tholba. They spend their 
entire day in the mosques, more especially in the 
immense Karaouin, squatting on their heels to 
follow the courses of learned professors, or kneel- 
ing at prayer. Those who, after six or eight 
years of study, have obtained their degree of man 
of letters and marabout, return to their own 
country with great glory. As I have said, these 
Tholbas of Karaouin sometimes come from a 



Into Morocco 219 

great distance ; they have gathered here from 
the four quarters of Islam, attracted by the fame 
of this holy mosque, in the library of which, it is 
said, there are books of priceless value and im- 
mense age, which were accumulated in the days 
of Arab grandeur, brought from Alexandria or 
taken from the monasteries of Spain. So, when 
they are back again in the countries from 
which they came, they become priests with a 
strong inclination to preach the holy war ; they 
have " taken the rose " in the impenetrable 
mosque. It is Karaouin which gives the fierce 
word of command to all Mussulman Africa ; it 
stands there in the Moghreb as a centre of resis- 
tance to all progress, the embodiment of slumber. 
Among the sciences taught at Karaouin are 
astrology, alchemy and divination. Other studies 
are the " Talismanic numbers," the influence of 
the stars and of angels, and many other recon- 
dite things which are for the time being aban- 
doned by the rest of the world — until some day, 
perhaps, when, in another shape, stripped of all 
that which now seems so marvellous, they shall 
come forth again in triumph as the ne-plus-ultra 
of our positive science. The Koran and all its 
commentators are paraphrased here at great 
length, and in the same way Aristotle and other 
of the ancient philosophers. At the same time, 



2 20 Into Morocco. 

too, with all these dry and serious subjects, there 1 

is cultivated an astonishing delicacy of style, 

diction and grammar, and those middle-age 

subtilities that we can no longer understand — 

and which are like those pretty and ingenious J 

designs that we see here and there on the 

massive bastions and great walls of the Arabs. 

And while I am on the subject of these old- 
time elegancies, I will quote the opening words 1 
of the letter of a vizier, an old pupil of Karaouin, 
in response to a foreign deplomat : 

'' We have made our illustrious master (whom 
may God make victorious ! ) acquainted with the 
contents of your letter. In reading it we 
constituted ourselves the interpreters of your 
sentiments, while artfully emphasizing your 
words, for the smoothness of a good diction is 
sweeter than the clearest water, more cunning 
than the most delicate philter. Dictated by the 
most affectionate feeling, your letter has ap- 
peared to us as agreeable as a refreshing breeze," 
etc., etc 



Into Morocco. 221 



XXVIII. 

Wednesday, April 24th. 

IN the course of an early morning walk upon 
my terraces — which are divided off into 
little nooks at varying heights — I came upon a 
new dependency of this aerial domain, separated 
from the part already known to me by a stretch 
of wall which it had never entered my head to 
climb. It forms for me a new loitering place, 
square in shape and of small dimensions, where 
I can enjoy tlie shade during the early hours of 
the day, while the other situation is so well 
adapted for watching the sun set upon the re- 
ceding distances of the lower city. 

My view from this new observatory is quite 
different from the other ; indiscreet glimpses of 
adjacent houses which overlook mine, rearing 
their terraces and their bits of wall against the 
blue sky ; as it is early yet, the good housewives 
of these dwellings, as is their wont, have hung 
out on cords exposed to the sunlight and the 
pure air, their striped coverlets, their variegated 
cushions, all sorts of articles of bedding which 
have been in use during the night, the bright 



2 22 Into Morocco. 

colors of which contrast boldly with the gray of 
the old cracked walls ; above these things a 
distant palm-tree shows its little bunch of plumes, 
and, higher still, there rises a shoulder of the 
mountain, all blue with its growth of aloes, with 
tombs, ruins, the Koubas of holy men ; an en- 
tire cemetery perching above the city. I walk 
about and keep my eyes open .... But see be- 
hind that bit of wall, scarcely two steps from 
me, that bit of fluttering ribbon ! It stirs — now 
it rises gently, gently, with infinite precaution : 
it is a woman's "hantouze ! " (One of my neigh- 
bors, evidently, who has heard me walking and 
has had the curiosity to see what it might be.) I 
am as still as a mouse, as if all at once turned 

to stone Higher and higher the gilded 

head-dress rises, then a frontlet of gold sequins 
emerges into view, then the hair, the forehead, 
the eyebrows ! and two great black eyes that 

are turned full upon me ! ! Coucou ! it is 

all over. The fair one disappears, just like a 
marionette in the theatre when the wire is pulled. 
I remain where I am, however, feeling confi- 
dent that she has not gone very far, and in fact, 
here is the " hantouze " again, rising, rising very 
slowly, until this time the whole face appears, 
the eyes regarding me boldly with a half smile 
of guilty curiosity. My fair neighbor is charm- 



Into Morocco. 223 

ing, thus seen by glimpses in this mysterious 
way, with her gold head-dress outlined against 
the background of ruins ; but really we are too 
near each other and I am wrong in remaining 
here ; I am conscious of a feeling of embarass- 
ment, and, not to protract the interview, I with- 
draw to my terrace below — where I have 
other neighbors whom I have been more success- 
ful in taming. 

It is much less secluded there, moreover ; in- 
stead of a few houses with a burying-ground in 
the distance, I have at my feet the panorama of 
Fez in its entirety, with its gardens, its walls, 
and the snow-clad Atlas at the back of the pic- 
ture ; my indescretion seems more permissible 
when I look upon the personages that figure in 
this immense, well-filled scene. When I make 
my appearance there, the low walls around are 
generally lined with the heads of idling women, 
curious to examine the rare species of being that 
I am in their eyes. Their former wildness, their 
airs of a frightened gazelle, have been quickly 
abandoned ; what would be an enormity of im- 
prudence and guilt with a Mussulman seems to 
them devoid of danger with me, who will never 
tell of them to any one, and who, besides, am so 
soon to go away so far, so far, to that strange 
country of mine. The main point with them is 



2 24 Into Morocco. 

that their husbands know nothing. And so they 
look at me, they smile at me and motion to me : 
Good morning, good morning ! They even ap- 
proach quite near, and show me various small 
objects to see how I like them ; ornaments for 
the neck and arms, or the gold threaded gauze 
that covers the "hantouze." My gloves are the 
subject of the greatest wonder : " Oh! did you 
see^" say the fair ones, ^^ he has two skins for his 
hands ! " The quarter where I live is inhabited 
by people of wealth, so all these women have 
nothing to do from morning till night but amuse 
their husbands, in which occupation they take 
turns. 

One of them, the property of one of my near- 
est neighbors, acts like a wild beast in a cage. 
She passes hours at a time, all by herself, on the 
summit of a wall, her profile sharply drawn 
against the sky, motionless and indifferent to 
everything, even to the curiosity of watching me. 
She is not actually pretty, especially at a casual 
glance, but slender and admirably modeled, 
young and of striking appearance, with dark eyes 
which give one the impression of some wearisome 
anxiety behind them. She is at her post this 
morning, arms bare, legs crossed and bare, too, 
as far as the knee ; her slender ankles are 
weighted with heavy, common rings, and old 



Into Morocco. 225 

wooden slippers suit badly with ner exquisite 
little feet. Her eyes are deeper set than usual, 
have a harder look, and any one would say that 
she had been crying. I am certain that it was she 
that got the bastinado last night ! The sound of 
the blows penetrated through my wall, and I 
heard sobs and cries of rage for an hour after. 

I am conscious of a new face, a tall young 
brunette, bare-headed, with streaming locks of 
the most beautiful hair ; from whence came this 
new arrival ? Who is my rich neighbor who has 
purchased that superb form and all that glowing 
youth ? A straight, clean-cut profile ; very long, 
sensual eyes, only half opened ; a lofty, untamed 
air ; her arm, which is bare, would itself alone 
be a wondrous subject for the sculptor's chisel 
or the painter's brush. After a moment's tim- 
idity, she, too, brings herself to look me in the 
face, seeming to say : " What are you doing 
there ? why do you come and interfere with us 
women in our dominions among the roofs ? 

Then I turn and look at the other, the solitary 
one, who is still nursing her ill-nature and her 
revolt upon the corner of the wall. Decidedly, 
she has that irregularity of ugliness, as it seems 
when beheld for the first time, that sometimes 
eventually becomes for us the supreme charm. 
She has those fine- drawn, firmly closed lips, very 



2 26 Into Morocco. 

deeply sunk at the corners, which often consti- 
tute the whole attractive and death-dealing 
beauty of a woman's face. And now the idea 
that she has been beaten, and will be again, is 
an extremely painful one to me this morning ; I 
have a sort of feeling of resentment that there 
are such formidable barriers between us when 
we are so near and see each other every day ; I 
would wish to be able to dry her tears and pre- 
vent her suffering, bring her only a little rest 
and physical comfort. The pity which I feel, 
however, is not of a kind for which I can claim 
any merit, but rather which brings confusion on 
my head, for I am perfectly conscious that I 
should feel less uneasiness about her and her 
troubles were it not for that delicious mouth. 

The all-powerful influence of outward charm 
works upon that class of our feelings which 
ought to be least subject to such influence — 
so that we may show more or less kindness 
toward such and such a creature as its face and 
shape are prepossessing or the reverse. 

It is ten o'clock — time for me to dress to go to 
breakfast at our minister's at the embassy. One 
of the fancies that I have taken in my head is to 
go there in Arab dress ; it is a pleasure to me to 



Into Morocco. 227 

display my bournous and my caftan there on the 
inlaid pavement, in the alleys of the orange gar- 
den or the court with ornamental arches, and 
figure myself to be, for a' moment, a character 
out of the Alhambra. 

The sun has dried up the mud in the city and 
brightened up the tints of the old walls; here 
and there, in the shadows of the narrow passages 
his long slanting rays fall upon the white veils 
and bournouses of those who are abroad. 

Preceded by one or two servants, as a man of 
position should be, I leave my house with the 
sober gravity befitting the place where I am and 
the dress which I have adopted. When, seizing 
my heavy knocker, I have with its assistance 
closed behind me my little iron-studded, iron- 
strapped door, I insert a key weighing three 
pounds in the lock that is centuries old. Then 
I go my way, at first through narrow covered 
passage-ways, more like blind alleys than streets, 
and where the indescribable clear transparency 
of the shadows gives one an idea of what the 
clear resplendency of light must be outside^, 
where the sky is visible. I meet two or three 
pedestrians, who are Avalking barefoot, like my- 
self, without producing any noise. As we meet, 
each of us hugs the wall, drawing in the shoul- 
ders as much as possible, and still our veils 



2 28 Into Morocco. 

graze. I turn twice to my right and pass 
through a small market for fruit and vegetables, 
which is covered, like the others ; then, to my 
left, I turn into a wider street where, at last, I 
have a glimpse of the incomparable blue sky be- 
tween two ranges of old white walls, which are 
the walls of mosques ; the side exposed to the 
sun is dazzling bright, while the side in the 
shadow is of an ashen blue. Both the mosque 
to right and the one to left are abandoned 
and in ruins ; but standing in the middle of 
their walls that have lost all shape and form be- 
neath repeated coats of whitewash, their gates 
have remained intact and charming. They have 
preserved their framing of mosaic-work ; their 
rosettes of strangely involved pattern or else of 
the simplicity of large full-blown daisies ; their 
rows of star-studded designs, the thousand little 
facets of which are brilliant with colors that are 
extremely ancient, and, notwithstanding, very 
bright and very fresh. 

A few steps farther on the wall is cracked 
from top to bottom, then suddenly comes to an 
end, completely fallen in, exposing to view the 
holy court where the dead lie sleeping under the 
inlaid pavement that is overrun with grass and 
wild poppies. In passing the spot it becomes 
necessary to turn out into the sunlight in order to 



Into Morocco. 229 

avoid a certain stork, who is busily occupied in 
setting up his household in an immense nest at 
the top of an exceedingly small minaret, and 
who showers down upon your head blades of 
dry grass and bits of plaster. Oh ! the all-per- 
vading sunlight, the quiet as of death, the mys- 
tery and the charm of it all — how can they be 
told in words ? 

This nook, which has become so familiar to 
me, will perhaps remain imprinted on my mem- 
ory longer than any other, without my being 
able to explain why such is the case. I cannot 
tell how it is that I experience such a feeling of 
delight in threading this little street every day, 
under the early sunlight, between these two old 
mosques. I feel a kind of artistic enjoyment in 
picturing to myself the inaccessibility of the 
spot and how far removed it is from the com- 
mon-place, and in adding by my presence one 
detail more, which might catch the eye of a 
painter. I think that it is more than anything 
else on account of the pleasure of strolling there 
and looking upon myself and my habiliments 
of vizier as the genuine article that I am beset 
by those shifting fancies of pink caftans and 
light-blue caftans, veiled by white draperies 
kept in place by silk belts of curious colors. I 
endeavor to be sufficiently true to my models, 



230 Into Morocco. 

when thus attired, that those whom I meet shall 
not turn and look at me, and yesterday I was 
greatly flattered when some Berbers from the 
mountains, taking me for one of the chief men 
of the city, saluted me in Arab fashion. I am 
willing to admit that there is a great deal of 
childishness in all this ; to those who shall shrug 
their shouldtrs, nevertheless, I shall declare that 
it does not seem to me perceptibly more stupid 
than to pass one's evening at the club, or in 
reading the proclamations of candidates to the 
Chamber of Deputies, or in taking pleasure in 
the adorable elegance of an English sack-coat. 

Turning to the right and leaving this street 
of my preference, I soon arrive, through other 
narrow passages, at the little low gate of the 
minister's dwelling. There, as soon as I have 
crossed the sill, I am among the guards, who 
are old acquaintances ; the caids and the horse- 
men who followed us from Tangier, and who 
have set up their tents among the blooming rose 
trees of the garden, under the orange trees and 
the clear blue sky. I know them all, and they 
come to meet me with a smile on their faces. 
They arrange the folds of my haik, of my bour- 
nous, and strive to initiate me into the little re- 
finements of Arab elegance, pleased that I dress 
as they do, saying : " It is much prettier, is it 



l7ito Morocco.- 231 

not ? " (Oh yes ! it certainly is). And they go 
on : " If you should dress in this way when you 
return to your country, every one would be 
wanting to have Moroccan costumes." (As for 
that, I must disagree; I cannot very well picture 
to myself this mode being generally adopted on 
the Boulevard.) 

Leaving the delightful garden I traverse a cor- 
ridor where, as soon as I cross the threshold, I hear 
the sound of falling water, and at last I reach 
the great inner, two-storied court, which is the 
marvel of the dwelling. The spray from the foun- 
tain brings out the colors of the tesselated pave- 
ment with its thousands of little figures in blue, 
yellow, white and black. Around the sides is a 
series of Moorish arcades with an ornamentation 
of fret work, and at the upper slory, over these 
round-headed arciies and these arabesques in 
stone, there is a gallery of cedar- wood carved 
in open work. A jet of water rises from a 
basin in the centre, and also from an exquisite 
mural fountain placed against one of the side- 
walls. This fountain is in a grand lance-shaped 
arch of inlaid work where star-shaped designs of 
rare form and beauty are entangled together ; a 
bordering of black and white tiles enframes the 
embroidery of these multi-colored rosettes, and 
above, crowning the whole, pensile ornaments of 



232 Ifito Morocco. 

snowy white hang from the roof like stalactites 
in a grotto. 

Immense cedar doors give access to the 
apartments opening on this court ; within, tjie 
walls are garnished half-way to the ceiling with 
hangings of blue and red velvet, embroidered in 
gold in imitation of great arches. 

* 

* * 

Here I meet the minister again, with all my 
other travelling companions, and at his table, 
served in European style, I find a little of the 
cheerful gayety of our meals under the tent. 
For a moment I am again in the world of the 
moderns ; it seems as if this palace (the property 
of a Vizier who has surrendered it temporarily 
for our accommodation) was transmogrified into 
a little corner of France. 

* 

* * 

Then comes the hour devoted to the coffee 
and the cigarette of the Orient ; we spend this 
hour in the shade of a colonnaded veranda, 
facing the ancient, whitewashed kiosk of the 
garden. From here we have a view of the tran- 
quil little orange-grove in its surrounding of 
high walls, now filled with Bedouin tents among 
the rose-trees and the under brush. 



Into Morocco. 233 



XXIX. 

MY surroundings are becoming of a more 
every-day character, and I am almost of 
a mind to carry my story no further. When I 
go out, it no longer seems strange to me to de- 
scend my dark stairway and find the mule that 
I have ordered in advance awaiting me at my 
door with his easy-chair of a saddle on his back, 
nor to jump into it from the very door-step so as 
to avoid soiling my long white draperies or my 
papooches, and ride away hap-hazard through 
the dark, narrow lanes. I go wherever my fan- 
cy leads me, into the lone places or among the 
crowds, to the bazaar or into the fields. 

How can I describe the swarming crowds of 
the bazaar, the constant, noiseless stir of all those 
bournouses in the semi-darkness ! The little 
labyrinthine avenues cross each other in every 
direction, covered with their ancient roofing of 
wood, or else with trellises of cane, over 
which grape-vines are trained. Fronting on 
these passages are the shops, something like 
holes in a wall as regards size, and in them the 
turbaned dealers sit squatted, stately and impas- 



234 J^'fi'to Morocco. 

sible, among their rare knick-knacks. Shops 
where the same kind of goods are sold are 
grouped in quarters by themselves. There is 
the street of the dealers in clothing, where the 
booths are bright with pink, blue, and orange 
silks, and with brocades of gold and silver, and 
where ladies, veiled and draped like phantoms, 
are posted. There is the street of the leather 
merchants, where thousands of sets of harness of 
every conceivable color, for horses, mules and 
asses, are hanging from the walls ; there are all 
sorts of objects of strange and ancient fashion 
for use in the chase or in war : powder-horns 
inlaid with gold and silver, embroidered belts 
for sword and musket, travelling bags for cara- 
vans and amulets to charm away the dangers of 
the desert. 

Then there is the street of the workers in 
brass, where from morning till night is heard 
the sound of hammers at work on the ara- 
besques of vases and plates, the street of the pa- 
pooch embroiderers, where all the little dens are 
filled with velvet, pearls and gold, the street of 
the furniture decorators, that of the naked, grimy 
blacksmiths, that of the dyers, with purple or 
indigo-bedaubed arms. Finally, the quarter of 
the armorers, who make long flint-lock muskets, 
thin as cane-stalks, the silver inlaid butt of 



Into Morocco. 235 

which is made excessively large so as to receive 
the shoulder. The Moroccans never have the 
slightest idea of changing the form adopted by 
their ancestors, and the shape of their musket is 
as immutable as all things else are in this coun- 
try ; it seems like a dream to see them at this 
day making such quantities of these old-fash- 
ioned arms. 

A stifled hum of unceasing activity arises from 
the mass of people, clad in their gray woolen 
robes, thus congregated from afar to buy and 
sell all sorts of queer small objects. There are sor- 
cerers performing their incantations ; bands of 
armed men dancing the war dance, with firing 
of guns, to the sound of the tambourines and the 
wailing pipes ; beggars exposing their sores ; 
negro slaves wheeling their loads ; asses rolling 
in the dust. The ground, of the same grayish 
shade as the multitude upon it, is covered with 
all kinds of filth : animal refuse, chicken feath- 
ers, dead mice ; and the crowd tread down the 
revolting mass under their trailing slippers. 

How far removed is all this life from ours ! 
The activity of this people is as foreign to us as 
its stagnation and its slumberousness. An in- 
difference which I cannot explain, a disregard of 
everything, to us quite unknown, characterize 
these bournous-clad folk even in their greatest 



236 Into Morocco. 

stir and bustle. The cowled heads of the men 
and the veiled heads of the women are occupied 
by one unchanging dream, even in the midst of 
their bargaining ; five times a day they offer up 
their prayer, and their thoughts turn, to the ex- 
clusion of all beside, upon eternity and death. 
You will see squalid beggars with the eyes of an 
inspired man ; ragged fellows, swarming with 
vermin, have noble attitudes and faces of pro- 
phets. 

" Baleuk ; Baleuk ! " — is the eternal cry of the 
Arab masses (''Baleuk" means something like 
*' Clear the way !") 

It is " Baleuk " when the little asses are pass- 
ing in a long string, loaded with bales placed 
breadthwise, which catch people and upset 
them. '' Baleuk," for the slow-gaited camels, 
which move along with a swaying movement to 
the sound of their little bells. Baleuk, for the 
galloping, rearing horses of the chiefs, in their 
caparisons of wondrous colors. Never does 
one return from this bazaar without having come 
in contact with some person or something ; 
without being run down by a horse or having his 
clothing soiled by some small ass with a coat 
full of dust.— Baleuk ! 

People of all the different tribes meet and 
mingle promiscuously amon^ themselves. Negros 



Into Morocco. 237 

from the Soudan and light-colored Arabs ; au- 
tochtonous Berbers, Mussulmans without con- 
viction of the faith, whose women veil only 
their mouths, and the green-turbaned Derkaouas, 
merciless fanatics, who turn their heads and spit 
upon the ground at the sight of a Christian. 
Every day the " Holy woman," with wild eyes 
and vermillion-painted cheeks, is to be seen pro- 
phecying in some public place. And the " Holy 
man," too, v;ho is incessantly walking, like the 
wandering Jew, completely naked, without even 
a strip about his waist, threading his way very 
rapidly through the throng, always in a hurry 
and all the while mumbling his prayers. Here 
and there is a little nook open to the sky, an 
open square, where there may be a great mul- 
berry tree growing, or perhaps an immense grape- 
vine, hundreds of years old, twisting its branches 
until they look like knotted snakes. And then 
there are the "Fondaks," which are a species of 
caravanserai for the accommodation of the for- 
eign merchants : great courtyards running up 
several stories high, surrounded by colonnades 
and galleries in carved open work of cedar-wood, 
and devoted each to one particular kind of mer- 
chandise ; there is the fondak of the dealers in 
tea and East India wood, that of the merchant 
who deals in carpets of the western provinces. 



238 l7ito Morocco. 

one for spices and one for silk, one for slaves and 
one for salt. 

All this quarter of the bazaar is considered as 
not very safe for us, on account of the proximity 
of the mosques of Karaouin and Muley-Driss. 
It is even a fact that the streets leading to Mu- 
ley Driss, the smaller but the more holy of the 
two, are barricaded breast high by great wooden 
hurdles, such as are put up in the fields to keep 
cattle from going where they are not wanted ; 
we must be careful not to pass these barriers or 
our lives will be in danger. The approaches to this 
mosque, which is as deeply venerated through- 
out Islam as the Kasbah at Mecca, are never to 
be polluted by the foot of a Nazarene or a Jew. 

There is a little spot that I particularly affect, 
close by the entrance of the bazaar, where I leave 
my mule every day in charge of one of my servants, 
resuming him again upon my return when I have 
completed my purchases. At such time of my 
departure, when I am leaving this labyrinth of 
shadows, the place of which I speak seems like 
a bright scene from the Thousand and One 
Nights. There the dark and narrow street sud- 
denly widens out like a fan, forming a sort of 
triangular plaza upon which a ray of sunlight 
falls from the blue sky. The farther end of this 
little place, where several other mules are wait- 




^:- 



M 



Into Morocco. 239 

ing along with mine, tied to a very ancient grape- 
arbor, is adorned by a handsome fountain ; an 
arch of inlaid work, set up against the corner 
wall of a projecting house, from which spirt two 
jets of water which fall back into a marble basin; 
the whole so ancient, so defaced and tumble-down 
that there are no words capable of giving an idea 
of its aspect of decay. To the right of the foun- 
tain, a wretchedly paved narrow lane ascends a 
steep acclivity and loses itself in the darkness 
beneath a broken-down, sinister-vaulted passage : 
(it is in that direction that I and my mule will 
disappear presently when we shall start for our 
abode in the precincts of old Fez). To the left 
there is an inimitable monumental gateway, finer 
than any of the gates of the city or of the 
mosques, but only serving as means of entrance 
to a sorry old courtyard. It is an ogive of im- 
mense size, festooned with the rarest arabesques 
and the finest mosaic work in polychrome. 
Above this entrance-way runs a wide horizontal 
band of religious texts, also in mosaics, black 
letters on a white ground. • Higher yet is a row 
of small ogives, the bases of which all rest on the 
same line, and each of which is filled with ara- 
besques of different size, carved in lacework — 
first those of a very large pattern, then those of 
a very small pattern, and so alternating, thus ac- 



240 Into Morocco. 

centuating still more forcibly the cunning dis- 
played in varying the ornamentation. 

Yet higher still, the crown to all, an indescrib- 
able arrangement of stalactites projects over the 
place below, forming, as it were, a very prominent 
cornice, or an overhanging awning. All these 
stalactites, absolutely regular and geometrical in 
form, fit into each other, cover each other, over- 
lay each other, in extremely complicated groups; 
in some places they are like nothing so much as the 
thousands of cells in a bee-hive; elsewhere, higher 
up, they are like icicles. The entire effect of all 
these decorations, so elaborately worked out, is 
that of a series of arches of charming curvature, 
with a marvellous ornamentation. The bright 
coloring of the tiles is deadened under a thick 
coating of dust, all the fine carvings are broken, 
blackened by time, and hung with spiders' webs 
and birds' nests; and this fairy-like gateway natur- 
ally gives the impression of an extreme antiquity, 
as, for the matter, of that, do the fountain and 
the plaza in which it stands, the pavements, the 
rickety houses ; as do the whole city and all its 
inhabitants. Moreover, Arabian art is so asso- 
ciated in my mind with ideas of dust and death 
that my imagination refuses to go back and pic- 
ture it at the time when it was young and fresh- 
colored. * * * 



Into Morocco. 241 

Outside the bazaar, the winding ways of Fez 
become darker and more desolate, there are but 
few streets that are uncovered ; the grape-arbors 
and the roofing of cane hurdles are replaced by- 
platforms of wood or arches of stone, which 
span the streets at a distance of two metres or so, 
surmounted by detached pieces of wall reaching 
to the top of the houses, stern and forbidding 
always. It is like travelling at the bottom of a 
series of wells, connected by arched passages ; 
the blue or gray sky is seen only by an oc- 
casional glimpse, and it is impossible to form an 
idea of the direction one is taking. Even in 
those empty and lifeless quarters there are crowds 
of people; even there the cry "baleuk " is heard. 
Baleuk for the sober, contemplative men who are 
coming out of the mosques after reciting their 
prayers ; baleuk for the restive mules, who have 
obstinately planted their feet cross-way in the 
road and refuse to move in either direction ; 
baleuk for the herds of cattle passing in single 
file, their heads menacingly lowered, through the 
dark little passages, hardly wide enough for their 
great carcasses. 



242 Into Morocco. 



XXX. 



AFTER a few hours of early slumber in my 
lonely abode, I have a glimpse of moon- 
light streaming in on me through the cracks of 
my cedar doors, and in the distance of the silent 
night I hear the chanting of prayers in unvarying 
shrill, mournful tones ; those cries of burning 
faith, those wailing laments which seem to ex- 
press the nothingness of all things earthly. It is 
two o'clock, and this is the first prayer of another 
day which the eternal sun will soon come and 
brighten with his beams. It is an immense, 
wide-spreading song of praise to Allah, a dreamy 
canticle, now loud in its fervor, now low and 
plaintive, but always mournful, so mournful as 
to send chills through one. The muezzins, like 
the Arab pipes, seem to have learned to pitch 
their tones upon those of the jackals. For a 
long, long time this chant of the mosques hovers 
above the gray repose of the slumbering city 

then silence is restored, a silence of 

death. 

The last hours of night wear away. At day- 
break, in the cool of the early morning, mingling 
with the crowing of cocks, the voices of these 



Into Morocco. 243 

men are again heard, reciting their prayers with 
increased exaltation ; it is five o'clock and this 
is the second of the daily offices ; it is also the 
hour when the white-robed Sultan in his palace 
rises to begin his daily austere life of religious 
observance. 

Then the sound of a distant gun announces 
the day, the hallowed day of Friday ; then the 
universal hymn arises, the pipes commence to 
groan, the drums begin to beat ; the sun has 
risen, night is ended. 

While it is yet early morning, I make my way 
to the bazaar, unattended, in Arab dress and on 
foot, although that is not considered the correct 
thing to do, to buy rose-water and the odorifer- 
ous Indian wood, with which to perfume my 
apartment, as is the custom. Never did I carry 
so far as this morning my amusing illusion of 
being an inhabitant of Fez. The bazaar, which 
has but just now opened its thousands of little 
shops, is quiet and almost deserted ; the bright, 
gay sunlight sifts through the far-stretching 
arbors of cane and is tempered by the fresh green 
of grape-vine leaves. The perfumes which I am 
after are sold in the same quarter as raw silk and 
pearls, and this quarter is the most highly col- 



244 ^f^i<^ Morocco. 

ored of the bazaar — in the correct acceptation of 
the word color. Stretching in a long and nar- 
row perspective down the succession of small 
passages, thousands of objects of all sorts are at- 
tached to the raised coverings of the dens, within 
v;hich the merchants sit squatting on their heels; 
there are countless skeins of silk and skeins of 
gold thread ; there are heaps of pink and gilded 
pearls ; there are those silken belts and tassels 
(worn around the neck to sustain the sword or 
the holy book), which, as I have mentioned, are 
one of the elegant niceties of the Arab costume. 
There are very noble and very handsome men in 
their monkish white capuchons, noiselessly walk- 
ing to and fro, selecting from among all these 
belts one of a certain shade to harmonize with a 
certain costume. 

Here, before a shop of children's toys, is an 
old grandmother, veiled like a ghost, but with 
very kind eyes, who is higgling over the price of 
a funny little doll for her grand-child, an ador- 
able little youngster four or five years old, with 
eyes like an Angora cat and finger-nails already 

dyed with henna I look at everything 

this morning through the spectacles of tranquib 
lity and naif simplicity, and then, too, the dark- 
ling mystery which at first sight seems to enwrap 
all things quickly disappears as soon as one be- 



Into Morocco. 245 

comes familiar with their aspect. I have got to 
know every corner of the bazaar, and when I 
pass, some of the merchants bid me good-day, 
and invite me to come in and be seated. 

I involuntarily always find my feet straying to 
the dark lanes which encircle Karaouin. There, 
too, the mystery has fade^ out, and there is no 
renewal of the strange feeling which I experi- 
enced the first day. I linger before its doors, 
taking long looks into the interior ; it would not 
require a great deal to induce me to enter ; I 
can scarcely bring myself to believe that it might 
cost me my life ; it would seem quite natural 
that I should go and kneel at the side of the 
people whose costume I am wearing. 

The aspects of the Karaouin vary greatly as it 
is viewed through one entrance or another. I 
am not surprised that we were unable upon our 
first view to master the effect of all its details ; 
it is rather a collection of mosques, of different 
styles and epochs ; it is a city of columns and 
arches of every form known to the Arabs. Here 
heavy, flat, round-headed arches, springing from 
low massive pillars, follow each other in endless 
perspective, with innumerable lamps hanging in 
the darkness of the ceiling ; there are courts 
flooded with sunlight, vaulted only by the blue 
of Heaven, and surrounded oy tall slender col- 



246 Into Morocco. 

umns and arcades of an infinitely varied orna- 
mentation of never failing rarity and exquisite- 
ness of design. And never has Karaouin been 
so beautiful as to-day beneath this dazzling light 
of morning, which, clear and white, penetrates 
everywhere and irradiates everything, gilding the 
old marbles, the countless mosaics, and the jets 
of the fountains. 

One of the doorways, in the shadow of which 
I always stop in preference to the others, opens 
on the largest and most marvellous of these 
courts, paved in tiles and marble. At the sides 
are small kiosks, or rather canopies, projecting 
into the court, which, though they are finer, re- 
call those of the celebrated Court of the Lions 
in the Alhambra ; there are the same groupings 
of light columns supporting indescribable arcades 
of openwork, which seem to have been formed 
by a patient superposition of icicles, the whole 
effect heightened by a little gold that is 
dying under the dust of centuries, by a little blue 
and a little pink and I know not what other fad- 
ing colors. And on the framing of the doors, in- 
tentionally made flat and very rigid, which sep- 
arate these ornate porticos, there are carvings of 
inimitable design and execution, cut to different 
degrees of depth ; one might take them for the 
old lace of some fairy, of which several thick- 



Into Morocco. 247 

nesses had been fastened up there, one over the 
other. 

All these kiosks have an appearance of light- 
ness, light as little castles built for sylphs among 
the clouds with facets crystallized from hail and 
snow. At the same time the unbending rigidity 
of the principal lines, the employment of combi- 
nations of geometrical forms and the absence of 
all form inspired by nature, animals or men, con- 
spire to give to the whole an effect of austere 
purity, of immateriality, of religio7i. 

The sunlight is falling in floods upon this 
courtyard, and all the mosaics, all the tiles are 
glittering with irridescent hues ; the murmuring 
jet which springs from the fountain in the centre 
has shifting tints of opal or of iris and stands 
out deliciously against the background in com- 
pany with a great inner doorway, which, as well 
as the kiosks at the sides, is ornamented with the 
lacework of the Alhambra. As it is Friday, the 
whole people, in white bournouses, is prostrate 
on the flags, motionless in prayer. 

From the outer dusk, from the darkness as of 
night which prevails in the circular road, where 
I am obliged to remain in concealment, but in a 
security that is only partial, all these things as- 
sume to my eyes an aspect of enchantment. 



248 Into Morocco. 

The '' Holy woman " is implacable in her pur- 
suit of me this morning. Clad in a ragged dress 
of yellow silk, her cheeks daubed with vermillion 
and her eyes wild and dilated, she follows me 
persistently as I leave the bazaar, uttering in 
loud tones incomprehensible words which sound 
to me rather like benedictions ; my costume and 
my bearing have evidently inducedher to believe 
that I am other than I am. At last, tired of her 
attendance, I throw her some small coins so that 
I may be allowed to pursue my way in peace. 



It is an hour later upon the market-place, 
the most bustling time of the whole day — when 
the multitude is seething with business. 

On the grand plaza, which is a sort of rectan- 
gular plain, there is a great stir among the bour- 
nouses and the veils, the hooded, masked throng, 
white or gray in color, to which shepherds in 
great coats of camel-hair impart patches of brown 
tones and asses patches of red tones. There are 
hundreds of women seated on the ground, selling 
bread, butter and vegetables, their faces invisible, 
Avrapped in muslin. To the rear of the great 
place and its multitude, there are the walls of 
Fez, rising dark and gigantic, dwarfing all else, 
their pointed battlements outlined against the 



Into Morocco 249 

sky. It is only a thing of course that the sound 
of the pipes and tambourines is heard. Here 
and there the pointed hoods collect together in a 
mass, forming a compact circle about some en- 
trancing spectacle; there are the snake-charmers, 
the men who run a skewer through their tongue, 
those who gash themselves about the head, those 
who take one of their eyes from its socket with 
a wooden spoon and lay it out upon the cheek ; 
all the rag-tag and bobtail of the town, all Bo- 
hemia. To me, who am to leave here day after 
to-morrow, these things, now so familiar, will 
soon seem very astonishing, when I shall have 
returned to our modern world and shall think of 
them from a distance. At the present moment, I 
really am a part of an epoch that is past and gone, 
and it is the most natural thing in the world for 
me to take my place in this life, exactly similar, 
I think, in every respect to what life must have 
been in the people's quarters of Granada or Cor- 
dova in the time of the Moors. 

To-morrow will be my last day here. The 
embassy, which is detained at Fez by protracted 
political business, will remain here, and I shall 
go on, in company with Captain H. de V., with a 
small caravan of our own — which will be amus- 
ing and not, perhaps, without a spice of danger. 
Our route will lie in the direction of Mequinez, 



250 Into Morocco, 

another holy city, even more dilapidated and 
more dead than this, and from thence toward in- 
fidel Tangier, where our dream of Islam and tlie 
past will come to an abrupt ending. I have 
scarcely had time to become attached to my Mus- 
sulman abode here, whicli I shall have to aban- 
don and forget, as I have already forgotten so 
many strange abodes scattered everywhere over 
the surface of the globe. Still, I would have 
been glad to remain in it a week or two longer. 
A few carpets, some arms and ancient hangings 
were beginning to make it quite homelike, while 
it had lost nothing of its mysterious little airs 
and the difficulty of gaining access to it. 

XXXI. 

Saturday, April 27th. 

WE were invited to breakfast at the Caid-el- 
Mechouar's (the Introducer of Ambas- 
sadors), and we wend our way thither on horse- 
back, preceeded by his guards, with their huge 
turbans and enormous staves of office, who, by 
the Caid's orders, attend us at our doorway. 

The great court of his palace is even finer than 
that of the Vizier of War. Above all, it is older, 
and the kindly touch of many centuries has sub- 
dued the gilding and the color where they were 
excessive. 



Into Morocco. 251 

There are rows of inner balconies opening up- 
on this court. Their upper galleries of cedar- 
wood are composed of thousands of minute com- 
partments geometrically arranged, producing the 
effect of the waxen comb which is the product 
of the patient labor of the bees, but over the 
general arrangement of all these infinitesimally 
small details there has presided an indescribable 
something, in which lies the genius of Arab art 
and which gives to the whole a harmonious sim- 
plicity of effect. All these galleries are filled at 
our entrance with white-veiled women — in crowds 
sufficient, one would think, to break down the 
slender supports — who crane their necks and ob- 
serve us in silence. 

The court, as a matter of course, is paved in 
tiles and marble, with a fountain playing in the 
centre. It is pervaded, the whole place vibrates, 
with passionate music, quick in movement and 
at the same time solemn; voices pitched on a 
high key, accompanied by powerful stringed in- 
struments, tambourines and iron castanets. We 
recognize the orchestra as the same which the 
Vizier of AVar had at his house the other day ; 
it belongs to the Sultan, who has loaned it to do 
us honor. 



25? Into Morocco. 

Our host, the Caid-el-Mechouar, is an ex- 
tremely fine looking man, The description of 
Matho in Salammbo : " A colossal Libyan, etc.," 
would exactly suit him. He is of almost super- 
human proportions, with admirable eyes and 
features, while a beard that is already beginning 
to turn gray and the darkness of his complexion 
point, notwithstanding the regularity of his pro- 
file, to the mixture of negro blood in his veins. 
Personal beauty, however, is the principal re- 
quirement for one seeking to be an Introducer 
of Ambassadors ; the post is almost always, it 
seems, bestowed upon the most magnificent per- 
son of Morocco. 

Like his colleague at the war office, this vizier 
does not sit at table with us, it being considered 
improper for a good Mussulman to break bread 
with Nazarenes. He contents himself with sit- 
ting apart, near the room where our board is 
spread, and seeing that his slaves, who are terri- 
bly flurried by our presence, are not remiss in 
bringing in the mountains of cous-couss and 
roast meat. 

During the meal I sit facing the handsome 
court, which is visible to me in its whole extent 
through the lofty arch of the painted gate-way. 
The Soudanese slaves, adorned with bracelets 
and great earrings, are incessantly hurrying 



Into Morocco. 253 

across it, bearing on their heads dishes of huge 
size, surmounted by their conical coverings, like 
the peaked roofs of little turrets. The sunlight 
flashes on the tile-paved walks. Here and there 
confused glimpses are caught of women's eyes, 
flashing from loop-holes that have been cut in 
the lofty walls, and there is a line of veiled faces 
watching us from the top of the wall at the bot- 
tom of the court, which rises like a screen be- 
tween us and the sun. And the music is con- 
tinually repeating the same monotonous phrases, 
quickening the time more and more, with ex- 
treme exaltation, and finally magnetizing and 
soothing us, producing a sort of mild intoxica- 
tion. 

* * 

It is two o clock of the afternoon, and the sun 
is at its hottest. As I am to leave to-morrow, I 
am abroad at this scorching hour, having a 
thousand things to attend to in the course of 
this last day. First I have to visit the walled 
city of the Jews, where horribly dirty old men, 
repulsive with their cunning and their ugliness, 
have their squalid hovels stuffed with ancient 
jewels, rare arms and stuffs that are not to be 
procured even at the bazaar, which I wish to 
purchase from them. It is a long way from my 



254 J^f^to Morocco. 

house to the quarter of the Jews ; it extends in 
a narrow strip along the southern side of New- 
Fez, while I live in Old Fez from whence my 
start will have to be made. I am on horseback, 
with an escort of the red infantry. 

It is two o'clock, and one of the hottest days 
that we have experienced so far. The old mud- 
walls seem to be wasting away beneath the de- 
vouring sun, the cracks in the old houses seem 
to grow longer and open wider. The little 
streets lie deserted between their two rows of 
lifeless ruins, which bake and split open in the 
heat. The pavements, the old ilack boulders 
polished by the naked feet or the slippers of 
many generations of Arabs, here and there dis- 
play their worn surface among the dust and bits 
of broken straw. There broods over the whole 
slumberous city that peculiar dejected silence 
that prevails when the sun puts forth all his 
energy to dazzle and to scorch. 

There is a little shade and coolness as we pass 
through the thick triple gates of the ramparts. 
Seated on the ground, in the corners of these gate- 
ways, barbers are waiting to operate on the wild 
woolly-haired country people — one of whom, 
while he is being shaved, is holding two black 
rams by the horns ; and in another corner a 
practitioner is taking blood from a shepherd. 



Into Morocco. 255 

Bleeding is reputed to be the sovereign remedy 
for all kinds of ills, as it used to be with us in 
old times ; the operation is performed at the 
back of the neck, by cutting straight down to 
the bones of the skull with a razor. I feel more 
than usually impressed to-day by the wildness of 
this country about Fez ; by its silence and its 
gloomy aspect of abandonment. 

Immediately beyond the gates we come upon 
a burning desert, where there are no roads, where 
there is not to-day a Jiuman being or a caravan. 
This is the spot that was so populous and so 
noisy on the morning of our entry in state, where 
now there is scarcely to be heard the melancholy 
little chirp of a grasshopper. The walls of the 
city and the palace rear themselves toward the 
sky in confused grandeur, with their battlements 
and their tapering projections of stone ; all alike 
erect, sullen and dark from foundation to sum- 
mit, producing an impression of beauty merely 
by their gigantic size. At their feet, nothing ; 
on this side of the city not a house, nor a tree, 
nor a tent, nor a group of human beings ; only 
they, the walls, upright and immense in vertical 
stature. The fierce sun of to-day exaggerates, if 
possible, their extreme oldness, brings out their 
cracks and crannies ; in spots they are breached 
and dismantled, and their foundation is sapped. 



256 Into Morocco. 

Other enclosures, completely ruinous and in- 
expressibly desolate, start from the ramparts, 
spreading out and prolonging the city into the 
desert country, and finally melt away among the 
rocks and bogs and all the chaos of this ancient 
soil that has been dug over and over for centu- 
ries. Time has covered these walls with lichens 
of a bright yellow color, which stand out on the 
dark gray of the stonework like spots of gold ; 
under the deep blue sky, the general effect is 
that of warm, mellow coloring bedizined with 
gay stripes. 

In the part that has entirely gone to ruin, in 
those secondary enclosures that I spoke of, which 
are no longer of use, there are doors, exquisite 
in form, like all Arab doors, and surrounded by 
mosaics which are still to be seen under the in- 
crustation of lichens ; they afford access to 
lonely fields where there is nothing but grass and 
grasshoppers. As I am pursuing my way among 
these ruins of the walls, beneath the fierce beat- 
ing sunlight, my attention is arrested by one of 
these doors as being the most deliciously Arab 
object that I have met with, as well as the most 
singularly melancholy; there it stands, in the mid- 
dle of a hundred metres of monotonous and for- 
bidding wall, opening its lonely archway, which 
is set in a framework of mysterious designs, 



Into Morocco. 257 

while, beside it, a solitary old date-palm rears 
aloft its bunch of yellow plumage. 






A hundred metres further, the Sultan's camp 
appears before me ; its tents strike the eye as a 
collection of intensely white objects in the midst 
of the red soil, surrounded by the blue distance ; 
the snowy walls seem to tremble in the heated 
air. It is considerably larger than when I was 
here before. It is said to be six kilometres in 
circumference, and capable, when completed, of 
holding thirty thousand men. 

The great tent of the Caliph rises high in the 
centre of the camp. All that can be seen of it 
is the canvas wall, called " tarabieh," which en- 
circles it and conceals all that is within ; even 
when he is in the field, the Sultan's dwelling- 
place must always be concealed from the com- 
mon eye. Behind this wall, it seems, there is 
quite a little city ; beside the private quarters of 
the Sultan and his immediate dependents, there 
are those of his favorite son, the little Ab-dul- 
Aziz, as well as those of a certain number of the 
ladies of the harem, selected to take part in the 
expedition. 

As soon as the Sultan's tent is taken from the 



258 Into Morocco. 

store-rooms of the palace and begins to go up 
outside the walls, the intelligence is at once dis- 
seminated through the length and breadth of 
Morocco by the travelling caravans, and still 
more, by those swift messengers who travel night 
and day, over streams and mountains, carrying 
letters and verbal intelligence, performing the 
functions of our postman. Every tribe is soon 
informed that the Sultan is about to take the 
field, and the rebellious ones prepare for resist- 
ance. The Sultan, naturally nomadic, like his 
Arabian ancestors, generally passes six months 
out of the twelve under canvas, warring inces- 
santly against the revolting tribes of his own 
empire, who only recognize him as religious 
Caliph, not always as temporal sovereign, and 
some of which (notably the Zemours and the 
Riff tribes) have never even been brought to 
subjection. 

This time the Sultan is to be absent from Fez 
for four years. In the intervals of his raids and 
his gathering in his harvests of his heads, he will 
take his repose in his other two capitals, Me- 
quinez and Morocco, where he has palaces and 
impenetrable gardens, just as he has here. 

Those of his women who are not to make part 
of his travelling train were sent forward last 
week on mules to the walled seraglios of Me- 



Into Morocco. 259 

quinez, to which point they make the journey in 
three stages. 

* * 
I shall have time enough and to spare to spend 
in this dirty old quarter of the Jews, which was 
my destination when I started out, and the de- 
sire seizes me to take one last look from the 
mountain which dominates Old Fez. My horse 
climbs sturdily up through the little rocky paths, 
with an occasional futile attempt at a gallop. 
We are quickly at the summit, where we inhale 
the cooler breezes, which ruffle the carpet of 
flowers as they pass over it. Here and there are 
trees in the hollows, and in the little valleys are 
clumps of olive trees, in tlie shade of which the 
Moorish shepherds are singing pastoral ditties to 
their goats in the depressing silence that reigns 
about them. Above all, there are tombs — tombs 
everywhere, of great antiquity, among the green- 
ery and the aloes. There are the " Koubas " of 
saints, venerated ruins, the well-proportioned 
porticos of which are tenanted by families of 
birds. Then there is the historic kiosk, built by 
a Sultan of former days, which cost him his 
throne, the men of Fez, grumblers as they al- 
ways are, taking it ill that he could look down 
from its summit at evening-tide upon all their 
women on their terraces. 



26o Into Morocco. 

In fact, all the terraces are visible to me from 
here, thousands of grayish promenades, but un- 
tenanted now, under this blazing sun. I over- 
look the holy city, its long line of dilapidated 
walls, its bastions, its green minarets and its in- 
frequent palm trees. Two or three strings of 
mules and a few camels, filing away toward I 
know not what country to the south, are the only 
things that give any sign of life in this solitary 
region. The whole country is flooded with great 
waves of light; there are only a few small, fleecy 
clouds here and there, lost in the bottomless blue 
of the sky. And not a sound arises from the city, 
over which continually broods the same torpor, 
the same stagnation. 

I tear myself away and turn my steps resolute- 
ly toward the Jews' quarter, in my quest after 
old hangings and ancient arms. Like the Jews 
of our mediaeval Europe, it is they who amass 
in their strong-boxes not only wealth and for- 
tunes, but also precious stones, antique trinkets, 
and all sorts of old priceless objects that viziers 
and caids who have gotten into debt to them are 
finally obliged to leave within their clutches. 
With all this, they assume an appearance of 
deepest misery and want ; they are looked down 
upon by the Arabs even more than the Christ- 
ians, living a furtive life, imprisoned within their 



l7ito Morocco. 261 

dark and contracted quarter, fearful and con- 
stantly on guard to protect their lives. 

Descending from the mountain, steeped in 
light, where, under the flowers, so many saints 
and dervishes lie sleeping, I wind for a long time 
along the surprisingly old walls of '* New Fez," 
by paths that are at first bare, but soon become 
green and shady with mulberry trees, and pop- 
lars that still retain their small fresh leaves of 
April; with clear streams bordered by reeds, iris, 
and great white lilies. 

The ramparts of the Jews are as high and well- 
battlemented as those of the Arabs, their ogive 
gateways are as lofty, with the same heavy iron- 
bound gates. These gates are closed every night 
at an early hour ; Israelite guards with a distrust- 
ful aspect are posted in the embrasures, allowing 
no suspicious person to pass ; it is evident 
enough that life in this den is spent in perpetual 
fear of their neighbors, Arabs or Berbers. 

Directly in front of their gate is the place of 
deposit for dead animals (which is one way of 
showing them a politeness). To gain access to 
them, it is necessary to pick one's way between 
heaps of dead horses, dead dogs, carcasses of all 
sorts and descriptions, which lie rotting in the 
sun, exhaling a nameless odor. They are not 
permitted to remove this plague-spot, and every 



262 Into Mor 



occo. 



night the jackals hold high festival beneath their 
walls. Neither are they permitted to remove the 
filth which is thrown from their houses into their 
narrow streets — streets so narrow that two can- 
not pass ; bones, skins of vegetables, refuse of 
every kind, accumulate there for months, until 
it pleases some Arab aedile, in consideration of 
a round sum of money, to have the street cleaned. 
In this dark, damp quarter, there are mouldy 
stinks in varieties that are not found elsewhere, 
and all the inhabitants carry around wan faces. 

Two or three persons, stationed at the gate- 
way, observe me as I come up, curious to know 
what I am after there, scrutinizing me with 
eager, covetous eyes, scenting a bargain to be 
driven ; long, pinched, white faces ; thin, hooked 
noses of inordinate length, and long, thin hair, 
falling in greasy, scattered corkscrew curls, 
which smear the black robes that hang from 
their sharp, narrow shoulders. 

So much the worse for their costly stuffs and 
antique arms, I cannot bring myself to put foot 
within those mouldy hovels, among such repul- 
sive beings, on the eve of my departure, on such 
a charming evening, while the sun is so glorious- 
ly gilding the tranquil old jSIussulman city and 
its grand old walls. Accordingly, I wheel my 
horse away from the gates and turn his head in 



Into Morocco. 263 

the direction of the Sultan's palace; I shall reach 
there as all the great white-robed personages are 
coming out after the evening audience, to return 
to their dwellings in Fez-Bali, and I shall have 
one more look at these characters of another age, 
as they pass upon the scene that is so admirably 
set with great walled courts and immense ruins. 

* * 

Again, then, I approach the palace by the 
well-known ways, through the long lines of 
walls, so resembling each other in their stern, 
forbidding height ; I see before me the succes- 
sion of cheerless courtyards, great and empty as 
the exercising ground of troops, and which seem 
almost narrow, so lofty are the walls which close 
them in ; to get an adequate idea of their size, 
one must look at the men, the infrequent white 
ghosts, who traverse them, and whom the con- 
trast reduces to the size of pygmies. 

The sun is rapidly sinking as I and my guide 
enter the first of these enclosures, and the dusk 
is already beginning to settle down upon it. 
The tall dark walls, masking everything, like im- 
mense screens, all at once make dim the light ; 
their rows of pointed battlements give them a 
cruel and menacing aspect. The great ogive 
which gives access to the inner of these haunts 



264 Into Morocco. 

stands there in the centre of the far wall, flankc<.[ 
by its four towers, Avhich rise all of a piece, im- 
posing after the fashion of the donjo?i of Vincen- 
nes, but more forbidding because of their sum- 
mits of pointed stone-work. 

The surface of this court is strewn with boul- 
ders, bones, and refuse of all sorts, and is cut up 
by openings in the ground ; two or three camels 
are roaming about in search for the infrequent 
tufts of grass, looking very small in their im- 
mense surroundings ; lost in one of the corners, 
also, there is an encampment of white tents 
which looks like a pygmy village, and three per- 
sons, enfolded in their bournouses, who emerge 
from the obscurity of the great gate, appear to 
me like inhabitants of Lilliput. The inevitable 
storks are flying above our heads, crossing the 
square space of sky that is cut out by the jagged 
battlements. Thousands upon thousands of 
black, shiny birds, too, are clustered in bunches 
upon the walls, crowding each other, climbing 
over each other, forming dense masses of mov- 
ing, stirring objects, just as we see swarms of 
flies in summer-time settle upon carrion ; and 
while I stop to watch these thronging little wings 
and claws, the three grave persons who emerged 
from the great gateway have drawn near to me ; 
they are old men, who smile good-naturedly and 



Into Morocco. 265 

give me some information in Arabic in relation 
to the birds, which I fail to understand. (Such 
affability for an unknown Nazarene upon a ca- 
sual encounter is not an usual thing in this coun- 
try ; it must be my excuse for preserving so tri- 
fling an incident.) 

I turn my steps towards the gate at the far 
end of the court ; it will afford me admission to 
the second, and generally more animated, court, 
where the white-robed viziers sit every day and 
administer justice to the people. Oh ! these 
Arab gates, with their infinite variety of myste- 
rious design — how can I express the charm 
there is for me simply in beholding them, the re- 
ligious melancholy, the revery of the past, that 
they all inspire within me. Standing alone 
among walls that sadden us like the walls of 
prisons, possessing in their form, whether round 
orogival, a certain indefinable quality which re- 
mains always unchanged even in the midst of 
the most fanciful diversity ; then always framed 
in that fine geometrical ornamentation, the rare 
elegance of which has in it something severe and 
ideally pure, something that is in the highest de- 
gree mystical. 

The other court to which this gateway leads 
me, after passing through a dark vaulted pass- 
age, is as grand and wild and imposing as the 



266 Ifito Morocco. 

first. It is filled with people, however, as^ I had 
expected it would be, and the approaches are 
obstructed by horses and mules, with their high- 
peaked saddles, which grooms are leading by the 
bridle. The reason for this is that at the far 
end, under some old arches that form a sort of 
alcove, the ministers are performing their func- 
tions, almost in the open air, with very few 
clerks and scarcely any papers. 

The Vizier of War holds his court under one 
of these arches, and under the other the Vizier 
of Justice gives instantaneous decisions from 
which there is no appeal. Soldiers keep a clear 
space around him by a free use of their sticks, 
and plaintiff and defendant, witnesses and pris- 
oners, are hauled up before him, all in the same 
way, two muscular guards seizing them by the 
nape of the neck. As this is said to be a rather 
unsafe neighborhood for Nazarenes, I do not 
advance beyond the entrance, in order not to 
bring on a diplomatic complication. 

Business is over now, however, as I thought 
it would be. In turn the Viziers, with the assist- 
ance of their attendants, seat themselves on 
their mules to return home. White-bearded, 
with long white robes and long white veils, they 
mount their red-caparisoned white mules, each 
of which is led by four slaves dressed all in 



Into Morocco. 267 

white with tall red caps. As the crowd rever- 
ently parts to let them pass, they move off 
quietly at a walk, proud as the prophets of old ; 
their veiled eyes beholding only a dream of the 
past ; like the snows of Atlas in whiteness ; pic- 
tured on the background of their mighty ram- 
parts, their grand ruins The sun is 

about to set, and a cold wind has sprung up, as 
it does every night, beneath the sky that has sud- 
denly taken on a yellowish tinge; it roars through 
the tall arches and whistles among the stones of 
the parapets. 

I make my retreat also, following the Viziers. 
I desire, for one last time, to behold the wonders 
of my terrace at the holy hour of the Moghreb. 

* * 

There, on the roof of my house, the same en- 
chanting scene greets my eyes that has done so 
already so many times ; the city bathing in a 
pink or yellow golden light, the nearer terraces 
separated from me by a film of bluish vapor, and 
the distant terraces, those thousands of stone- 
paved squares, of which the changing tints are 
slowly fading, stretching away upon the slopes 
of the hills until they are merged in the sur- 
rounding ramparts and the verdant gardens. 
The female slaves are there at their post, with 



26S l7ito Morocco. 

black, smiling faces, covered with light-colored 
kerchiefs, white or pink. There, too, are all my 
pretty neighbors in tall hantouze, leaning on 
elbows, reclining, or proudly erect, very graceful 
in attitude and very showy in color, with their 
stiff cardboard belts, their flowing sleeves and 
the rich cascade of gold embroidered handker- 
chiefs and loosened tresses falling down their 
backs. And once again, as it has done for cent- 
uries and centuries, the great prayer resounds in 
mournful, dying tones, while the snows of Atlas 
fade upon the pale yellow of the sky. 

* 

Dinner over, I make an unwonted excursion 
by lantern light, before the doors of the quarters 
are closed, for the purpose of saying good-by to 
the minister and the embassy ; they are to re- 
main here, for how long a time I am unable to say. 

Captain de V. and I are to start to-morrow 
morning at early daybreak. We have each been 
presented on the part of the Sultan with a tent, 
a selected mule, and an Arab saddle ; we have 
also a tent for our attendants, a caid to act as 
guide, and eight mules to carry our traps and 
our baggage. 

I find the embassy in its usual place, seated by 
the light of the lanterns under the verandah of 



Into Morocco. 269 

the delightful old kiosk in the perfumed orange 
grove. The minister has secured for us the let- 
ter of *'Mouna," duly signed and sealed by the 
Sultan, authorizing our passage through the 
several tribes and according us the indispensable 
right of levying contribution ; but notwithstand- 
ing the steps he has taken to get them, he has 
not as yet been able to obtain the letters for the 
chiefs of the city of Mequinez, nor the permis- 
sion to visit the gardens of Aguedal. This has 
assuredly happened not through any want of 
good-will, but simply from procrastination and 
inertia ; it seems that the Grand Vizier went 
about the business at such a late hour that he 
could not obtain the Sultan's signature before 
prayer time ; he promises that everything shall 
be signed in readiness for us by to-morrow 
morning, and in case we shall have started, 
that couriers shall follow us, even as far as 
Mequinez, if necessary, with the documents, and 
the gifts that have been prepared for us. But 
we do not put much faith in it all, and it is a 
disappointment. 

Our travelling companions who are remaining 
at Fez display some regret at being unable to 
accompany us. It seems that their detention is 
likely to be longer than they had anticipated. 
There are a thousand complicated affairs to be 



270 Into Morocco. 

adjusted, which seem to have neither beginning 
nor end, disputes that date from years back, 
debts due to Jews that it is impossible to collect. 
No conclusion can be reached with this people. 
The Sultan, entrenched within his impenetrable 
palace, is scarcely ever to be seen, and the Viziers 
find it convenient to employ procrastination, in 
which lies the great strength of Mussulman di- 
plomacy. Then the Ramadan is approaching, 
during which nothing can be done ; its influence 
is already beginning to make itself felt. Again, 
it is only very early in the morning that our af- 
fairs can receive attention, tl:ie middle of the day 
being set apart for prayers and slumber, and the 
afternoon for the consideration of questions of 
domestic policy. In addition to all this, one of 
the principal political personages has just been 
bitten in the arm by one of his many white wives, 
who is jealous of one of his many black wives; he 
has taken to his bed, and there is another delay. 
On the eve of our departure, we are charged 
with many commissions for Tangier, for that 
modern and living world from which people here 
are so widely separated. Those who are to re- 
main, it is easily to be seen, have already begun 
to suffer from that peculiar disease, that lo?iging 
to get away ^ which is so very well known, which 
infallibly attacks, as it seems, embassies that 



Into Morocco. 271 

have been a couple of weeks in Fez, and wliich 
is a political force which Arab diplomats are 
accustomed to count on. Though I, for my part, 
would so willingly remain, I can still under- 
stand the feeling, for I have at times been con- 
scious of the oppressiveness of Islam. - 



I 



XXXII. 

Sunday, April 28th. 

T is a gray morning that dawns on our depar- 
ture. Awaking in my old house with the 
first glimpse of day-light, I peer anxiously into 
the square of darkling sky which shows through 
the opening in my roof ; it threatens to rain. 

There are no longer any carpets or hangings 
about me, no trace of my ephemeral housekeep- 
ing ; everything has been removed and packed ; 
the aspect of antiquity and wretched dilapidation 
reigns again in every direction. 

Captain de V. and myself have agreed to tra- 
vel in bournous, so as to attract less attention 
among the tribes by the way, and as my Arab 
wardrobe is somewhat limited, I had my long 
floating shirts, my long white faradjis, washed 
yesterday, so as to be ready for the road, and 
they have spent the night stretched out to dry 
upon my terrace. I go up to get them, amused 



272 Into Morocco. 

by this petty detail which identifies me for a 
moment with the life of an Arab in humble cir- 
cumstances getting ready for a journey. They 
are still quite damp, those faradjis of mine, 
and when I put them on they give a disagree- 
able sensation of cold. 

From my roof I can see that the sky is of an 
uniform gray over its whole extent. A deep si- 
lence, very melancholy and very solemn, broods 
at this early hour over the city, which is hardly 
visible as yet. I say farewell forever to all the 
surrounding terraces in their gloom and desola- 
tion, a farewell to all the old ruinous walls 
around, behind which my fair neighbors are 
slumbering, including the beautiful mutineer, of 
whom i shall never hear again. 

At five o'clock one of the Sultan's soldiers 
brings my mule, ready saddled, to my door. I 
am to meet de V., with our muleteers and our 
baggage, at the gate by which we leave the city, 
at quite a distance from my house. For the last 
time, then, I journey along through the network 
of the little dark streets of Fez, making my way 
among a compact herd of cattle. (The cattle 
are brought in at night from fear of robbers and 
wild beasts, and sent out to the pastures again 
with the first light of morning.) 



Into Morocco. 273 

Leaving the city by the blackened gates of 
Old Fez, I am now skirting the ancient walls of 
New Fez. The depressing gloom of the lofty 
walls, the quagmires and the ruins, becomes 
thicker in the gray half-light and silence of the 
morning ; all that I can hear is the pattering on 
the ground of the hoofs of the cattle that sur- 
round me ; their breath arises from their nostrils 
in white clouds of steam. The herdsmen who 
have charge of them wear their capuchons down, 
are bundled in their rags of earth-colored gray, 
looking like dead men. 

I come to the sombre gateway of the palace ; 
from it there issues a row of a hundred black 
slaves, bearing on their heads those conical ob- 
jects in esparto, each of which serves to cover 
an enormous dish, and a smell of hot cous-couss 
is diffused through the cool air as they pass. It 
seems that to-day is a great Mussulman holiday, 
the precursor of the austerities of the Ramadan, 
something like omx Mardi-Gras, and it is custom- 
ary on this occasion for the Sultan to send each 
of the dignitaries of the city a dish prepared in 
his kitchens. 

Captain de V. is punctual at the rendezvous 
at the gate of New Fez, followed by our small 
escort with the mules and tents. Nearly all 
our comrades of the embassy, too, are there on 



274 J^fito Morocco. 

horseback, at this early hour, to accompany us 
some distance on our way. 

Once clear of the walls, we pay a salute to the 
Sultan's camp and his great enclosed tent as we 
pass, and then fairly commence our journey 
under the gray threatening sky, over that irreg- 
ular network of paths that the tread of many 
caravans has worn in the turf. Everywhere 
sombre tints of earth and sky emphasize the des- 
olate grandeur of these approaches to the city. 
A low hanging mist trails over a great meadow 
of bright green barley, and the plain seems to 
merge at every point of its circumference in a 
confused darkness, in a black opaqueness which 
rises to meet the sky, and which is really the 
great mountains in their wrappings of cloud. 

Fez fades to the sight upon its surrounding of 
dark background, and takes on that same sinis- 
ter aspect which is still fresh in our memory as 
characterizing it on the morning of our arrival. 
Turning in our saddles, we can see for a long 
time yet the little snow-white cones at the foot 
of the black walls, which constitute the encamp- 
ment of the most holy Caliph. 

On every hand the tinting is gloomy and sad ; 
the infrequent traveller in his woolen wraps, the 
camels, the asses, everything that goes and comes 
by this, the only track between the two cities. 



Into Morocco. 275 

are of neutral, earth-colored shades, brownish or 
grayish. Here and there we come upon little 
Bedouin encampments, their tents of the brown 
hue of the soil, from which arise curls of smoke 
that ascend straight into the air on the dark gray 
of the horizon, and away up, deep in the heav- 
ens, the "bright lark," invisible in the mist, is 
singing in full tones his morning song over the 
green fields of barley, reminding us of France. 






At the first " M'safa," our French friends 
leave us to return to Fez, with the expression of 
many good wishes for our safe journey, and we 
continue our lonely march in company with our 
Arab escort. 

There are thirteen " M'safa," that is to say 
thirteen stages, between Fez and Mequinez, the 
position of each of them marked by a well 
of drinking-water, which yawns, without the 
slightest pretence of an enclosure, directly in the 
middle of the path. The trip generally occupies 
two days, and even three, when there are ladies, 
but with our selected mules, fresh and in good 
condition, we expect to get in at an early hour 
this evening. 

There is soon an end of the cultivated fields. 



276 Into Morocco. 

Then commences an immense, wide-stretching 
plain of fennel, the gigantic African fennel, the 
flowering stalks of which are two or three metres 
high and almost as large as trees. It is as if 
we were entering a forest of yellow verdure, 
stretching in every direction away to the opaque 
black distance that shuts us in like prison walls, 
and which is, in fact, the surrounding mountains 
with their overhanging clouds. The whole 
length of our narrow, blind path the fennel 
brushes against. us and our horses, rising above 
our heads and caressing us with its cool foliage, 
as fine and curling as marabout plumes ; we are 
buried in the light yellow and green mass and 
are quite lost to sight, while we inhale the over- 
powering odor. 

The joyous song of the lark is still heard in 
the heavens, though the songsters, soaring high 
above our heads, are invisible in the gray fog; 
and now and then, a league or so apart, perbaps, 
a great isolated palm-tree rears its head above 
the monotony of the vegetation. 

Fur a space of four hours we proceed in this 
way among the fennel. Sometimes we hear a 
rustling in front of us, in the pathway that lies 
hid among this thicket of fine, downy verdure, 
which does not proceed from our train, and 
then there emerge from among the leaves herds 



Into Morocco. 277 

of cattle, or a band of boiirnoiis-clad men com- 
ing from Mequinez, or a caravan. It is amusing 
to meet camels, especially if it is in a narrow 
place ; you think that they are still some way off 
with their long straddling legs and their great 
bodies, when all at once the head, at the end of 
the swaying, outstretched neck, is directly over 
you, the eyes examining you point-blank with an 
expression of disdainful ennui ; they stop in 
their tracks to gratify their curiosity the better, 
then, turning their heads again, resume their 
unvarying slow, silent gait. They exhale a 
peculiar sweetish, insipid odor, something mid- 
way between a perfume and a stench, which 
lingers behind them long after they have 
passed. 

We are making our return journey on mules — 
which seems a less imposing way of travelling 
than was our advent on. horseback — but it is the 
only really practical, the only truly Arab way of 
travelling in Morocco. By this means we do not 
lose sight for an instant of our tents and baggage, 
which follow us at the same gait, on the same 
species of animals. We are not attended, as at 
the start, with a great escort, three or four hun- 
dred horsemen and guards stationed the entire 
length of the route. We keep our little column 
of a dozen men and as many animals well closed 



278 hiio Morocco. 

up, and we have to watch everything with our 
own eyes, finding ourselves a little at a loss in the 
Tfide extent of desert. 

Our saddles with their housings of red, are 
very capacious and solid, and as our mules get 
over the ground in their rapid, untiring swing, 
we quickly learn to make ourselves comfortable, 
like the Moroccans, by frequent changes of posi- 
tions ; astride, seated sideways, reclining, or the 
legs crossed on the animal's neck. Now and 
then our muleteers spin robber yarns for us, 
showing us points where travellers have been 
plundered and killed ; at other times they sing 
queer little airs in a thin, piping voice, a sort of 
compromise between that of a bird and a grass- 
hopper, and their monotonous little melodies are 
in plaintive harmony with the deep silence of the 
waste places. 

After four hours among the fennel, we come 
to tlie brink of a great fissure winding through 
the plain. A gulf, a ravine, in the depths of 
which rolls a torrent. We ascend it, pursuing our 
way along the bank until we reach a cascade, 
beyond which the torrent dwindles to a rapid 
brook. It is the Oued-Mahouda. Just above 
the noisy cascade, which falls thirty metres at a 
single leap, we cross the stream by a deep and 
dangerous ford, raising our legs on the necks of 



Into Alorocco. 279 

our mules, which are half submerged in the 
seething, turbulent water. 

This ford is just midway between the two holy 
cities ; it is much used by Moroccan travellers. 

We make a long halt upon the far bank, while 
one of our Arabs keeps on toward Mequinez so 
as to notify the Pacha of our coming, that being 
the proper thing to do for travellers of quality 
such as we are. Our halting-place is just above 
tlie cascade, overlooking on one hand the ford 
by which caravans are crossing and on the other 
the pool into which the stream plunges with a 
sullen roar. The surrounding country is every- 
where bright with the fresh verdure of spring, 
and the walls of the ravine are all pink with 
hanging garlands of bind-weed. The gray clouds 
have risen, keeping the sky still veiled, but leav- 
ing the distant landscape distinct and clear to 
our vision. 

In addition to the travellers, horsemen and 
foot-passengers who from time to time pass the 
ford, there arrives a whole tribe of nomads, 
people, animals and tents. The women of this 
douar, who are the last to cross, pick up their 
skirts with naif immodesty — displaying their 
fine, statuesque legs, rather tawny and a little ta- 



2 8o Into Morocco. 

tooed in spots — but keeping their faces chastely 
veiled. 

We make a fresh start. The region that: we 
pass through first is mountainous and stony. 
Then there comes another ford, set in a strange 
scene that has a wildness all its own ; it is situ- 
ated facing a desolate plain of great extent, at 
the foot of a pile of rocks, on which are seated 
a number of old men, motionless as statues, who 
pay us not the slightest attention, who are like 
mystical hermits engaged in a deep contemplation. 

This is succeeded by four hours of travel 
through regions that are absolutely wild, wastes 
of dwarf palms and asphodel, such as we have 
traversed so many of in coming hither. We fre- 
quently turn around to count noses, to see that 
none of our muleteers or of our bat mules are 
missing, for we have no great confidence in the 
faithfulness of our people. In this level plain, 
where the vegetation does not reach a very great 
height, it is easy enough to embrace at a single 
glance our small caravan, moving along in good 
order, well closed up ; it even appears to us very 
insignificant, lost and isolated as it is among the 
vast wastes. 

The caid on whose shoulders rests the respon- 



Into Morocco. 281 

sibility for our heads comes first, jogging along 
with imperturbable gravity : an old man in a 
pink cloth caftan beneath a transparent robe of 
white muslin ; his eyes are dull and without ex- 
pression ; his harsh, strongly marked features 
seem to have been chopped out of brown stone 
with a hatchet, and his white beard is like a 
lichen growing on a ruined wall ; he holds him- 
self upright, self-contained, majestically mummi- 
fied upon his white charger, carrying his long 
copper musket crosswise on his saddle. 
******* 

Mequinez ! . . . . Mequinez appears before 
us in the lonely plain. But so distant still ! 
That we can see it at all is only owing to the un- 
interrupted lines of the country and the great 
clearness of the air. There is only a little dark 
strip, the walls, no doubt, above which, scarcely 
visible, the towers of the mosques arise, seem- 
ingly no thicker than threads. 

Our advance still continues for a long time, 
until we reach a point where the view is hidden 
by old, crumbling walls, which seem to be the 
boundaries of great parks. It is the suburbs of 
the city. We make our entrance at a place 
where the wall is broken down, and find our- 
selves among olive trees, symmetrically planted 
in quincunxes on a very close turf of grass and 



282 l7ito Alorocco. 

moss, such as is only met \^ ith in regions that 
have been for a long time undisturbed and un- 
trod by the foot of man ; the trees, moreover, 
are sapless, covered with a kind of mould, and 
dying of old age, so that their foliage is quite 
black, as if it had been smoked. There are 
other of these enclosures beyond this one, all of 
them in ruins, in which are seen the same ghosts 
of trees, stretching away, correctly aligned, in 
every direction, as far as the eye can reach. 
They are like a succession of parks that were 
abandoned centuries ago, or places for the dead 
to promenade in. 

It is rather a strange surprise for us, therefore, 
to perceive, as we ride by, in one of these funereal 
alleys, a group of those bright-colored little 
bournouses — green, orange, blue or red — which 
are worn by children as a gala dress. Behind 
them are white veils of women, standing around 
a thread of smoke which rises from the ground 
toward the tree-tops. Our Arabs explain to us 
that to-day is the anniversary of the yearly fete 
of the school- children of Mequinez, when they 
come out to have a little feast upon the grass ; so 
here they are, in their fine clotfies, enjoying 
their outing ; the white veils at tlie back of the 
scene stand for the mothers who have come with 
them ; the smoke is that of the rural repast that 



Into Morocco. 283 

has been spread for them on the moss. And 
now their small feast is ended, and they are get- 
ting ready to go to their homes in the city, so as 
to be in before nightfall. 

I think that this children's fete is one of the 
most unexpected, most charming, and also sad- 
dest sights that I have met with in the course of 
my travels ; the bright display of the Oriental 
coloring of these little bournouses as they frisk 
about on the fine smooth turf of this lonely park. 

We pass beyond these walls and olive trees, 
and all at once Mequinez comes in sight again, 
very near to us and immense in aspect, crowning 
with its great shadow a range of hills behind 
which the sun is setting. We are only separated 
from the city by a verdurous ravine confusedly 
filled with poplars, mulberry trees, orange trees, 
trees of all sorts scattered at random, all in their 
fresh tints of April. High above us, upon the 
yellow sky, are drawn in profile the lines of the 
ramparts rising one above another, the innumer- 
able terraces, the towers and minarets of the 
mosques, the stern crenellated kasbah, and, over- 
topping the several walls of the citadel, the 
green-tiled roof of the palace of the Sultan. It 
is even more imposing and more solemn than 



284 Into Morocco. 

Fez. But it is now only the immense ghost of ^ 
city, a collection of ruins, a pile of rubbish, where 
dwell a bare five or six thousand of human 
beings, Arabs, Berbers and Jews. 

Ever since our long noonday halt our people 
have been telling us that we would arrive in time 
for the hour of the Moghreb. In fact, just as we 
make our appearance, the white flag of prayer 
goes up on all the minarets; the '' Allah Akbar ! " 
resounds in frightful clamor over all the extent 
of the holy city, even as far as the silent fields 
that lie around it. And, by reason of these long, 
mournful cries, this Allah, to whom these men 
cry aloud, seems to us at the moment so great, 
so terrible, that we, too, would wish to prostrate 
ourselves in the dust at the call of the Muezzins, 
before his dark, terrible eternity. 

The horseman whom we sent forward express 
returns, having seen the Pacha and received in- 
structions as to our camping-ground, to which 
he is to conduct us ; of course, it is outside the 
walls. Following this guide, we cross the ravine, 
with its delightful thicket of trees, which sepa- 
rates us from the city. For a long, long time we 
wind along the outside of the old embattled ram- 
parts ; they are fifty or sixty feet high, are all 



Into Morocco. 285 

eaten away at their base, crazy and cracked from 
top to bottom. There is not a soul passing in 
the circular path on which we are advancing ; 
three or four corpse-like beggars, slinking in 
corners of the bastions, are the only signs of life 
we meet ; hideous and frightful they are in their 
rags, lousy fellows covered with bleeding sores, 
the result of some leprous disease. There are 
dead animals, half devoured, lying on the 
ground, mules, horses and camels, their bones 
exposed in places where the flesh has been eaten 
away; and, where the jackals have left them, are 
everywhere other bones, picked clean, and heaps 
of offal and decaying matter. 

At length we are halted on a lonely piece of 
bare ground, among ruins and fallen stones and 
open chasms, at about five hundred metres from 
one of the gates ; we have reached the place ap- 
pointed for our camp. It is at the foot of one 
of those gigantic walls, which in this place, as 
well as in Fez, stretch away into the open coun- 
try as far as the eye can reach, a puzzle to every 
one as to what can have been the motive that 
induced their construction. There, in the yel- 
lowish twilight, the little canvas houses quickly 
go up under our direction, while a few drops of 
rain all at once begin to fall from the great 
clouds that have overspread the heavens. 



286 l7ito Morocco. 

The huge wall that backs up our little camp 
and dwarfs it by its enormous bulk is pierced by 
a succession of lofty porticos, some of them par- 
tially closed up with stone-work and others 
opening upon the black and treacherous coun- 
try. This wall, conforming to the upward slope 
of the ground, reaches to the ramparts of Mequi- 
nez at the point where the nearest gateway is, 
which is one of the main entrances to the city ; 
it is unnecessary to say that there is no road 
leading to this gateway ; no one enters, no one 
comes out by it ; there is no sign of life, and 
since the great prayer went up a while ago, we 
have not heard sound or stir, any more than if 
all around us were only abandoned ruins. The 
impression of sadness is extreme which charac- 
terizes the portion of the ruins that is visible 
from here, standing, as they do, upon a rising 
ground with an old minaret towering over them; 
the great city gate affording us through its 
pointed arch a glimpse of a bit of yellow sky 
from which the light has not entirely disappeared. 

The arched gate, the minaret and the bit of 
wall are all that we are to see to-night of Mequi- 
nez, the holy city. 

Near our camp are two springs set in enclos- 
ures of stone, with basins from which the camels 



Into Morocco. 287 

may drink, all of the greatest antiquity. While 
the darkness is rapidly settling down upon us, 
we take a lantern and go to secure a supply of 
cool water from them ; they are charmingly em- 
bellished with clusters of arabesques, which are 
being slowly eaten away by the dust. While we 
are there the son of the Pacha of the city comes 
up, mounted on a fine charger and preceded by 
a great lantern with panels of Moorish open- 
work. His object is to bid us welcome, and also to 
excuse the non-appearance of his father, who 
has been absent for two months, the holy old 
man, with all his cavalry, fighting the terrible 
Zemours, who have been laying all the country 
waste. 

He (the son) is very young and very good-na- 
tured. He tells us that he is preparing an 
abundant "mouna" for us, with dishes of cous- 
couss, smoking hot ; also that he will send a 
guard for our protection during the night. In 
fulfilment of his promise, he is quickly followed 
by two little asses, loaded, one with charcoal, 
the other with branches and twigs, so that we 
may cook our chickens on the grass. He comes 
in and takes a seat in our tent and relates bits 
of history. He cannot give us much informa- 
tion upon the purpose which the wall above our 
heads served in by-gone times ; he only knows 



2 88 Into Morocco. 

that it was built by Mouley-Ismail, "the Cruel 
Sultan, " three hundred years ago. Mequinez, 
moreover, reached its highest degree of prosper- 
ity under this Mouley-Ismail, who was the great- 
est monarch that ever Morocco had. 

The young Pacha is succeeded by a Jew, who 
comes in the now rapidly increasing darkness to 
pay us a visit, his attendants bearing a great 
lantern before him. Notwithstanding the sim- 
plicity of his brown raiment, he is said to be the 
wealthiest man in the city. His features, more- 
over, are regular and distinguished, and expres- 
sive of great sweetness of disposition. He re- 
ceived advice of our approach two days ago 
through one of his co-religionists in Tangier, M, 
Benchimol, second dragoman to the French em- 
bassy, who, during the entire course of our jour- 
ney, has displayed the most untiring kindness 
for us all — and so he very courteously comes to 
see if he can be of service to us. We promise to 
repay his visit to-morrow, and he departs in haste, 
fearful lest he may find the gates of the old ram- 
parts closed against him. 

The ground about our tents is broken and 
uneven, as is the case with the approaches to 
very ancient places ; there are entrances leading 
to caves and underground passages, and mounds 
of turf of singular shape, which afford food for 



Into Morocco. 289 

reflection. To take two steps beyond the tents 
in the darkness demands an infinity of precau- 
tion. The jackals, the owls, all the wailing, 
whining, screeching dwellers in the caverns and 
the old walls make their presence known by 
some single, unrepeated cry, which sounds like 
a low death-call. And the rain keeps coming 
down, as if the surroundings of our camp were 
not already gloomy enough. 

Half-Past Eight — Nine o'Clock. 

Our two visitors have been gone for a long 
time and nothing has yet reached us that was 
promised — neither " mouna " nor guard. No 
doubt Mequinez is afraid of foot-pads and has 
closed her gates and forgotten us, leaving us to 
the mercy of people and adventures of all kinds. 
We become doubly conscious of the black silence 
that reigns around our little canvas abodes, be- 
neath the clouded sky which makes the night 
darker than ever, so close to the walls of this 
strange, dead city. 

At last there is the light of lanterns shining in 
the distance, coming, no doubt, from the adja- 
cent gateway cut in the ramparts overhead, and 
they approach, coming down the uneven, hil- 
locky avenue into which the caverns open ; it is 
our "mouna" making its appearance with all its 



290 Into Morocco. 

wonted gravity and deliberateness ; cous-couss 
with sugar and milk, a live sheep and several 
chickens in cages. We would be glad to send 
back the poor animals, but such a course might 
have awkward results : we must surrender them 
to the knife first and afterward to the voracity of 
our escort. 

Then other lanterns appear upon the heights 
and descend toward us ;• a band of armed men 
marching to the tap of the drum. They are the 
soldiers who are to guard us until daylight, and 
judging from their numbers — there are eighty of 
them at least — we come to the conclusion that 
either the young Pacha is very prudent or the 
place has a very bad name. They seat them- 
selves in a circle around our tents, either on the 
grass or on shapeless black objects, facing each 
other two by two, a^d strike up a song to keep 
themselves awake. They will keep this up until 
morning ; it is the proper thing for sentinels to 
do who perform their duty conscientiously, and 
we must do the best we can about sleeping in 
the midst of this wild chorus which will never 
let up. Along toward midnight their music de- 
generates into a charivari that is truly diabolical. 
The fact that they have been selected to guard 
the '' Nazarenes " seems to inspire them with 
ironical mirth. They no longer sing, they imi- 



Into Morocco 291 

tate all the animals of Morocco, barking dogs, 
grunting camels, cackling hens, and these failing, 
they invent preternatural yells and shrieks of 
their own. I endure it as long as I can, then 
arise and grope my way to the tent of the old 
Caid, upon whose shoulders rests the responsi- 
bility for all things, and arouse him ; together 
we visit the posts, he bearing a lantern, I a horse- 
whip, and by dint of threats of immediate punish- 
ment, of complaining to the Pacha, of the bas- 
tinado, and even of imprisonment, silence is 
finally restored. 

One o'clock in the morning. We are presented 
with a second "mouna," more imposing than 
the first ; cous-couss again, pyramids of cakes, 
baskets of oranges, tea and loaves of sugar ; the 
young Pacha insists on doing things in style. 
Our escort make ready to recommence their 
noisy feasting and in the end we go to sleep 
again. 



292 l7ito Morocco. 



XXXIII. 

MEQUINEZ. 

Monday Morning, April 29th. 

WHEN we open our eyes upon the sombre 
landscape, Ave perceive that our encamp- 
ment is in a burying-ground, probably the pot- 
ter's-field of the place; there are no tomb-stones, 
but the mounds of turf scattered about, some re- 
cently thrown up, others very old, shoAV that we 
have been sleeping among the dead. 

The approaches to the city are as destitute 
of movement to-day as they were yesterday ; 
through the archway which opens in the wall up 
yonder on the rising ground, there is no sign of 
a living thing, and the cheerless desert begins 
immediately at the base of the long walls. 

About eight o'clock, however, three or four 
Jews sliow themselves, easy of recognition at a 
distance by their black robes; they have emerged 
from the gateway and here they are, coming down 
the uneven, grayish, jtony path in the direction of 
our camp. They wish to sell us old-fashioned 
trinkets and embroideries, which they unpack on 



Into Moi'occo. 293 

the wet grass among the pegs and cords of our 

tents. 

Nine O'clock. 

A horseman whose dusty aspect shows that he 
has ridden at speed reaches us from Fez ; he 
brings us the letters which we were awaiting 
from the Sultan to the Pacha and the Amins to 
enable us to enter the holy city ; they accord us 
full permission to go about freely and to visit 
the mysterious gardens of Aguedal. Thereupon 
we order out our mules and make our way up 
through the grayish avenue to the great gateway 
which last night so attracted our eyes, and at 
last, passing under the great arch with its setting 
of tiles and arabesques, we enter Mequinez. 

The first things that we meet are quagmires 
and ruins ; other ramparts, other enclosures, 
other tumble-down gates, the picture of desola- 
tion and the extremest old age. A few scattered 
inhabitants, loitering in the angles of the walls, 
and draped in bournouses of the same color as 
the stones, observe our entry with an expression 
of vague distrust. 

The streets are wider and straighter than those 
of Fez and the aspect of tlie city more imposing, 
but even more dilapidated and more tomb-like. 
There are great gray mosques and tall minarets 
overlooking the empty squares. On all the ter- 



2 94 ^>iio Morocco. 

races, on all the old cracked walls, on the lintels 
of the doors, grass and wild flowers, mignonette 
and daisies, are growing in thick clumps or in 
trailing garlands ; the effect of the ruins is lost 
in a garden of white and yellow flowers. 

Our guides conduct us through steep little 
vaulted passage ways to the house of the young 
Pacha, in order that we may give him the Sul- 
tan's letter which is to be the " open sesame " 
affording us access into the city. As we approach 
his dwelling the walls put off their decrepitude 
and are covered with an immaculate coat of 
whitewash, and the roofs are no longer orna- 
mented with wild flowers. There are several 
persons of sober aspect seated on stones, await- 
ing an audience ; they are all draped in muslin 
veils kept in place over their robes of pink or 
blue cloth by silken cords and tassels. 

The young Pacha receives us at the threshold 
of his house ; he first kisses the Sultan's seal 
upon the letter which we hand him, murmuring 
a pious benediction the while ; then he proceeds 
to read it and places himself at our orders to 
conduct us to those gardens of Aguedal which 
may be opened by no other man but he. When 
do wc wish to start? — We answer, " Right away," 
as we have no time to spare, and at a signal, an 
attendant runs to bring him a horse. Almost at 



Into Morocco. 295 

the same instant two black slaves appear, bring- 
ing up the charger at a gallop ; restive and su- 
perb he is, and knocks the plaster off the walls 
in the narrow street with his furious kicking. 
He is white, with long, flowing tail, and the sad- 
dle and bridle are of sea-green silk embroidered 
with gold. 

Following our host, we make our way through 
the dead city among the ruins of Mequinez, 
which we shall have to traverse in its entire ex- 
tent, the palace and gardens of the Sultan being 
far distant in the opposite quarter. The infre- 
quent foot-passengers bow before the young 
chief or stop to kiss the hem of his mantle. 
There are other enclosures in every direction, 
stiff, battlemented walls, succeeded by empty 
spaces and ruins, of which the ground plan is no 
longer distinguishable. The ramparts are all 
undermined at their foundation and it is diffi- 
cult to understand how they maintain their erect 
position, but notwithstanding this, they still offer 
an imposing and forbidding aspect, with their 
huge proportions and their tall crenellated bas- 
tions. 

Toward the centre of the place we come to a 
v/all higher than all the others, of immense 
height and length, the square bastions of which 
stretch away in perspective, perfectly aligned. 



2.96 Into Morocco. 

like the *' seven towers " of Stamboul ; it forms 
a city within a city, more closely walled, more 
impenetrable. We are standing on a sort of es- 
planade, from which we have a view of the sad, 
peaceful country in the distance, the ranges of 
dilapidated walls, the lifeless minarets and the 
empty terraces. In our immediate vicinity, how- 
ever, there is a little more life ; there are some 
men in their stone-colored bournouses, and a 
group of unveiled Jewish women, attired in 
gold-bespangled robes of blue and red velvet, 
who stand out against the grayish neutral tints 
like so many showily dressed dolls. At this mo- 
ment, too, we see a small band of horsemen 
filing into a deserted street ; they appear wearied, 
as if after a long ride, and signal us and shout 
to us to halt, and finally advance rapidly 
toward us. 

Ah ! It is our presents, the presents that the 
Sultan is sending us ! Praise be to Allah ! we 
had certainly given them up. There is a splen- 
did dapple-gray horse for the governor of Alge- 
ria, which will be entrusted to us for delivery, 
and, for ourselves there is a great tightly nailed 
box, which constitutes the entire lading of a 
mule. We send the horsemen back to our camp, 
where we shall ourselves proceed forthwith to 
unpack and investigate our treasures. But the 



l7ito Morocco. 297 

tidings of the monarch's gifts have spread, and 
now the people collect about us and look at us 
with respectful awe as being great chiefs. In 
days to come, in the misty twilight of the future 
when I shall look upon these gifts of the Caliph 
under my own roof, I wonder if I shall be able 
to recall all the circumstances of the strange 
bright scene, in which they appeared before me 
one day in this plaza of Mequinez, in front of 
the deserted palace of Mouley-Ismail, the Cruel 
Sultan. 

Directing our steps toward the gardens of 
Aguedal, we continue to skirt the funereal gray 
wall, its pointed battlements stretching upward 
into the blue aether. We come to another plaza, the 
greatest and most central one of Mequinez, sur- 
rounded by minarets and windowless old houses 
covered with whitewash. Here, in the wearisome 
wall that has kept us company so long, there is 
a wondrous gateway, all covered with an embroi- 
dery of mosaics, opening like a surprise before 
us and bearing witness to the fact that this place, 
with its fearful prison-like aspect, was once the 
abode of a magnificent sovereign, who displayed 
all the refinement of an artist in his unequalled 
luxury. In front of this gate, in the midst of the 
bright sunshine which falls upon the plaza and 
sharply defines there the black shadows of the 



298 Into Morocco. 

battlements, there is a great flutter among a 
group of fantastic cavaliers, who appear very- 
small of size as they sit in their velvet-covered 
saddles, whose gay laughter has childish inflec- 
tions in it, and whose mantles, instead of being 
white, as is the custom for men, are of all the 
brightest and lightest shades that are known. It 
is a party of school-boys, who are keeping up. 
yesterday's fete ; they are the '' Amins," the 
" Pachas " of the future, dressed in their fine 
clothes and mounted on their fathers' parade sad- 
dles ; it is a bright cavalcade of children among 
the ruins, a wonderful display of color in the 
bright sunshine, relieved against the sombre, 
crushing background of the palace walls. I 
think that this bit, surpassing all others, will re- 
main imprinted on my memory as being the 
most characteristically Oriental of anything I 
have met with in my travels in the Moghreb. 
How charming they are, and how odd, these 
school-boys on horseback ! And what a won- 
drous and mysteriously marvellous thing is the 
palace gateway that yawns behind them in those 
immense ramparts ! There is one little chap 
who may be five or six years old — not more ; 
he wears a salmon-colored bournousover a green 
velvet saddle and is mounted on a tall, neighing, 
rearing horse, who dashes his flowing mane back 



Into Morocco. 299 

into the face of his rider, but the urchin shows 
no sign of fear ; he only smiles, turning his fine 
eyes to right and left to see if people are looking 
at him ; what a delicious little creature he is, and 
what a superb cavalier he will be one of these 
days ! 

This gateway, known as the gate of Sultan 
Mouley-Ismail, the Cruel, who was contempora- 
neous with Louis XIV, is a gigantesque horse- 
shoe arch, supported by marble columns and 
surrounded by exquisite ornamentation. The 
whole of the adjoining wall, as high as the very 
summits of the battlements, is covered with tiles 
arranged in mosaic patterns as fine and as intri- 
cate as a piece of costly embroidery. The two 
square bastions which flank the gate to right and 
left are covered with similar mosaics and also 
rest on marble columns. Rosettes, stars, broken 
lines, intermingled in an endless tangle, geo- 
metric figures that puzzle the brain that tries to 
pursue them, but which all evince the purest and 
most original taste, have been lavished upon the 
embellishment of this arch, together with my- 
riads of little varnished tiles, some in bas-relief, 
some in high-relief, so that the total effect, as 
seen from a distance, is an illusion of a piece of 
stuff that has been embroidered over and over 
with priceless thread until it has become daz- 



300 Into Morocco. 

zling with flashing, brilliant color, and then hung 
out over the old stones to break the stern mo- 
notony of the lofty ramparts. Yellow and green 
are the prevailing tones in this medley of color, 
but the rain, the sunlight which has baked it all, 
the succession of many centuries, have worked 
together to mellow these tints, to bring them in- 
to harmony and endue them all impartially with 
one uniform warm and golden coating. These 
embroideries are crossed and surrounded by 
broad dark-colored belts, like mourning rib- 
bons stretched horizontally across their face ; 
these are religious inscriptions, texts from the 
Koran, in flowing Arabic characters, patiently 
worked out in mosaics of black tile-work. Along 
the uppermost of these belts there are iron 
hooks, such as those we see in butchers' stalls, 
projecting from the wall to receive, as occasion 
offers, rows of human heads. 

We continue on our way, still in the direction 
of the gardens of Aguedal ; still skirting the inter- 
minable wall, we come to more mosaic gateways, 
more bastions and rows of battlements. As we 
advance, the surroundings become more and 
more ruinous and abandoned. There are other 
immense, deserted plazas, surrounded by walls 
that seem to be the enclosures of vanished cities ; 
I could not count the number of dismantled 



Into Mo?'occo. 301 

gateways, broken arches, decaying walls. No- 
where any signs of life, except the storks perch- 
ing among the ruins and surveying from their 
height the desolation around them, an aspect of 
utter abandonment never witnessed elsewhere. 
Wide empty spaces, covered with stones and 
rubbish and cut up by deep holes, caverns and 
sink-holes. Here and there wheat-fields en- 
closed by lofty, imposing walls, which in times 
gone by must have served to protect so many 
hidden treasures. From time to time, deep set 
among the foliage of enclosures where we do not 
penetrate, great roofs of green tiles, covered 
with moss and wild flowers, rise above the mo- 
notonous line of the ramparts ; palaces of Sul- 
tans that have passed away, they are, the doors 
of which were closed after their master's death 
(it not being customary for the new Sultan to 
inhabit the abode of his predecessor), and which 
have been abandoned to the slow destruction of 
centuries. And overlying all this wilderness of 
ruin, which will soon be simmering under the 
scorching summer sun, is always and everywhere 
the same exuberant profusion of herbs and flow- 
ers, actual beds of daisies, anemones and pop- 
pies, red, white, and pink ; immense natural 
gardens, delightful in their melancholy wild- 
ness. 



302 Into Morocco. 

We continue to press on under the guidance 
of the young Pacha, trotting along behind his 
horse in his equipments of green and gold. We 
can no longer tell whether we are in the city or 
in the fields, the limit of the ruins being so in- 
distinctly drawn ; about us are great pieces of 
wall, unfinished and yet ready to fall from age, 
caprices of different sovereigns who have suc- 
ceeded to the throne and then have dis- 
appeared in the everlasting gulf before they 
could finish the work that they had put their 
hand to. Long lines of battlements stretch away 
to lose themselves, no one knows where, among 
the thickets and the verdure in the distance of 
the desert country. 

* * 

The gardens of Aguedal ! What a desolate 
place ! How impressive the unlooked-for sad- 
ness of them, even after all the funereal sights 
that our eyes have witnessed ! First, a broken- 
down, worm-eaten gate set in the lofty ramparts 
at the end of a grass-grown path, which swings 
open with an air of secrecy ; at the summons of 
the Pacha, a white-bearded keeper draws the 
bolts on the inside and closes them again when 
we have passed. A first enclosure, like a burying 
ground, between walls at least fifty feet high, then 




a-'^^g" ?|i^^^//y «/. 



Into Morocco. 303 

a second bolted door ; a second enclosure, then 
still another door — and at last the " gardens " 
are before us. We are impressed by the nudity 
of what seems to us an immense, limitless 
meadow, covered with short grass dotted with 
daisies, where herds of cattle and droves of 
horses are grazing in the wild state, and bands of 
ostriches are seen racing in the distance — and 
where the ground is scattered with bones and 
carcases of dead animals. As to gardens, there 
are none here ; a few trees, perhaps, yonder, in 
an enclosure like an orchard ; that apart, it is 
only anuncheerful, walled meadow, so extensive, 
however, that its gray wall appears to run to 
meet the horizon, seems to be only a slender 
line encircling the plain where the herds are 
grazing. The fields beyond, absolutely deserted, 
lie green beneath a lowering sky ; it is all like 
some land of the north, in a country destitute of 
roads and villages, like the park of some manor 
in a district abandoned by its inhabitants. The 
horses, the cattle, the little white daisies among 
the grass, also serve to remind us of our climes, 
and there are even small pools of water here and 
there, where the most every-day kind of frogs are 
croaking. The only thing surprising to us then, 
the only dissonant note, is this Arab chief riding 
at our side — and those ostriches, running about 



304 I'^to Morocco. 

on their long , slender legs as if they were at home 
here. If the place is sad, at least it is not com- 
mon-pJace ; for it is no doubt the fact that very- 
few Europeans have ever gained admission to 
these gardens of the Sultan. 

Our mules proceed with a certain amount of 
caution; they are afraid of the carcasses lying 
there on the grass ; then they shy at a band of 
ostriches who come up to investigate us, stretch- 
ing out their long unfeathered necks, and then 
race away, swaying to and fro on their long legs. 

We are curious to learn what has become of 
three Normandy mares, presented to Mouley-Has- 
san some four years ago by the French govern- 
ment at the time when a former embassy was 
here, and we diverge from our route to see if 
they may be among the drove of horses that we 
see grazing not far away. We finally recognize 
the three expatriated Normans standing closely 
bunched together, apart from their companions, 
and evidently forming a select society of their 
own. Each of them has her little foal by her 
side, the offspring of a foreign father, and it sur- 
prises us to see these animals remembering their 
common origin after their four years of exile 
and living thus in community, as if they under- 
stood that they were strangers in a strange land. 

After looking at the horses, we stroll along 



Into Morocco. 305 

under the walls to inspect three or four ancient 
edifices which stand backed up against the ram- 
parts, separated from each other by wide inter- 
vals ; they are garden kiosks, surrounded by a 
few dark C3presses. They have verandahs over- 
looking the Aguedal and supported by rows of 
charming old columns ; uninhabited for centu- 
ries, may be, they exhibit a mortal sadness be- 
neath the thick coats of whitewash which deface 
their arabesques. Their gates are shut, bolted, 
or even walled up with masonwork. No doubt 
the Sultanas, beautiful prisoners invisible to man, 
have often come in days of old and seated them- 
selves under the colonnades in front of these 
kiosks, and created for themselves a short-lived 
illusion of freedom by gazing upon the broad 
extent of the daisy-enameled plain ; and mys- 
terious love dramas have been enacted here, the 
history of which will never be written. Leaving 
the gardens of Aguedal, our guide conducts us 
back by other ways, through the inner depend- 
encies of the palace, between Jhe inevitable great 
battlemented walls, of immense height, which 
give to all this locality its character of impene- 
trable savageness. All the courtyards, avenues 
and broad plazas are untenanted and lifeless. 
The prevailing color of the ramparts and the 
ruins is an earthy yellow with streaks of a red- 



^o6 Into Morocco. 

dish brown ; the lime used at Mequinez is gen- 
erally mixed with ochre ; and then, more than 
all else, the course of time, the rain, the sunlight 
and the lichens have endued the whole with the 
primitive tints of the rocks and the soil. These 
dependencies of the palace are of immense ex- 
tent ; in the low grounds, where there are run- 
ning streams, we pass through abandoned or- 
chards, which are delightful thickets of orange, 
pomegranate, fig and willow. There is abundant 
opportunity furnished the pretty captive Sultanas 
of wandering among the verdure, and they may 
easily enough delude themselves with the idea 
that they are roaming in the wild-wood. 

The Indian fig grows in all the crevices of the 
ramparts and attains the size of trees, flaunting 
in the sunlight its yellow flowers and its 
rigid bluish leaves. Quantities of storks, stand- 
ing motionless upon one foot on the very top of 
the battlements, watch us as we pass by. 

The Pacha takes us to see an artificial lake 
which is used by the ladies of the harem to bathe 
in, and upon which the Sultan intends to launch 
the electric boat which we have presented him 
with. It is a rectangular sheet of water, three or 
four hundred metres in length. It is surrounded 
on three sides by a forbidding wall, sixty feet 
high, which is reflected upside down in the still 



Into Morocco. 307 

water, giving a false impression of great depth. 
The fourth side communicates with the great 
empty esplanade before the palace by means of 
a quay flagged with marble. Here we walk 
about, entirely by ourselves, our vision embrac- 
ing the whole series of formidable ramparts which 
rise one above another, twist and double on each 
other, and shut us in from the world. Above 
the old cracked walls, now baking in the noon- 
day sun, the grass-grown roofs of the palaces of 
the older Sultans again raise their heads — con- 
cealing, perhaps, still more wonderful rubbishy 
things that have never seen the light ; and still 
beyond, a confused distant mass of terraces, 
.mosques, minarets, cracked and tumbling walls ; 
all Mequinez outlined in solemn desolation 
against the gloomy sky. The shrilling of the locusts 
comes from among the old stones, and all the sur- 
face of the lake is dotted with small black points, 
which are the heads of frogs, piping at the top 
of their small voices among the silence of the 
ruins. 

There is only one building of recent date 
lifting its roofs above the old walls down yonder; 
it is the palace of the reigning Sultan, white as 
snow, roofed with green tiles and furnished with 
blue awaiings. The Sultan is obliged to pass 
most of his time at Fez or Morocco, his other 



3o8 Into Morocco. 

two capitals, and so is here only a month out of 
the year, but the palace is now tenanted by a de- 
tachment of the ladies of the harem who left Fez 
last week, and who, as may be well supposed, 
were scrupulously sequestrated within the walls 
before we reached the gardens. 

Just as we are preparing to take our departure, 
a group of black slaves, the royal laundresses, 
wearing great silver rings in their ears, emerge 
from the palace, carrying on their heads great 
bundles containing the soiled linen of the invisible 
beauties, which they nonchalently proceed to 
wash in the lake to the accompaniment of songs 
of their country. 

I cannot tell how many courts we have to cross 
in order to get away, how many gateways we 
have to pass through, nor how many turns we 
have to make, between the great sun-dried ram- 
parts where cacti are growing. It so chances 
that we are to make our exit by the wonderful 
mosaic gate of Mou ley-Ismail which we admired 
so much this morning. We pass beneath the 
shadow of the great arch, between the marble 
columns, and here we are, in the great central 
square of the city, in the bright sunshine. Some 
groups of Arab bystanders, catching sight of 
their Pacha between us two foreigners, advance 
and salute profoundly, bowing almost to the dust. 



Into Morocco. 309 

There must have been scenes like this in the 
olden time, when Mouley-Ismail took his in- 
formal walks abroad in the early morning. 

Here we thank the Pacha and say farewell, to 
direct our steps toward the Jewish quarter and 
pay the visit which we promised to the friend 
whose acquaintance we made last evening. It 
will be a change for us after all this dead 
grandeur. 

To reach our destination, we have to traverse 
the most thickly inhabited quarters; first, that of 
the jewelers, where, in little shops like boxes along 
both sides of the street, glittering displays of 
silver-ware and coral are fantastically exposed 
upon old tables of common wood ; then a long 
street of private dwellings, straight and wide as 
a boulevard and lined with little roofless houses 
that look like great cubes of stone ; it ascends 
toward a hill, on the summit of which the 
painted cupola of a saint's tomb projects its form 
upon the crude blue of the sky, flanked by two 
slender palm trees. 

The gateway of the Jews is situated at the end 
of this street. As we pass under it, the entire 
aspect changes at once, as if we had been taken 
bodily up from the middle of one country and 



3IO Into Morocco. 

dropped into the middle of another one. In 
place of silence and immovability, here is an un- 
ceasing stir and bustle ; in place of brown men, 
walking with slow and majestic step, draped in 
white mantles, we have men of pale or pink com- 
plexion, their long straggling curls surmounted 
by black caps, who go about with down-cast eyes 
in close-fitting robes of dark colors ; the women 
are unveiled and are very pale and liave scanty 
eye-brows ; there is a swarm of fresh and ruddy 
young Hebrews whose looks are expressive of 
fear and cunning ; a population too closely 
crowded in this stifling quarter, outside which 
the Sultan will not suffer them to live. The 
merchants congregate and block the streets, and 
the ground is strewn with animal and vegetable 
refuse and all uncleanness ; the filth is astound- 
ing, even after having seen the Arab cities, and 
the nameless stenches, a mixure of the pungent 
and the sweetish, are enough to turn one's 
stomach. 

Our friend of yesterday evening advances to 
receive us, advised of our arrival, no doubt, by 
the tumult raised by the multitude in our honor. 
His countenance still exhibits the same ex- 
pression of mild good nature, but for a million- 
aire his get-up is really very shabby ; an old- 
fashioned, smooth, threadbare, faded robe. It is 



Into Morocco. .311 

said to be customary for these rich Jews to af- 
fect simplicity when they go about the streets. 

The entrance of his house, also, is very unas- 
suming, quite low and narrow, on the brink of 
a gutter filled with filth. Once inside, however, 
we remain dazed in the presence of a singular 
luxury ; we are received and welcomed, in the 
midst of scenery worthy of the Thousand-and- 
One-Nights, by a band of smiling women liter- 
ally covered with gold and precious stones. We 
are in an interior court, open to the sky, running 
quite around which are a colonnade and orna- 
mented arcades. The floor is composed of 
bright colored tiles, and the walls are covered 
with the same as high as a man's stature ; over 
these are arabesques of infinitely varied design 
and astonishing lace work carved in stone, the 
whole picked out with blue, green, red and gold. 
The patient artists who decorated this house are 
the descendants of those who did the carving 
in the palaces of Grenada, and they have 
changed nothing, in the course of so many cen- 
turies, in the artistic traditions bequeathed them 
by their fathers ; the same fairy-like embroidery 
that we admire in the Alhambra beneath its 
coating of dust, reappears here in all the splen- 
dor of its new, fresh coloring. 

The women are fairly dazzling in the bright 



312 l7ito Morocco. 

sunlight ; they wear velvet petticoats, embroi- 
dered with gold, chemises of silk striped with 
gold, and open corsages almost entirely covered 
with gilding ; there are heavy rings set with pre- 
cious stones in their ears and on their arms and 
ankles ; and their small peaked caps are of bril- 
liant colored silks worked in gold thread. They 
are very pale, of a waxen complexion, their black 
eyes are painted in deep circles, and their hair, 
dressed " a la Juive," black also as the raven's 
wing, falls in smooth bands down their cheeks. 
The mistress of the house is the only one of this 
group who is not absolutely young ; the others, 
who are presented to us as ladies^ and who, as 
the luxury of their dress indicates, must be mar- 
ried, are children, whose age, taking the average 
of them, may be about ten. (Among the Jews 
of Fez and Mequinez, it is customary for girls to 
marry at ten and boys at fourteen.) 

All these small fairies come up to us and shake 
hands with pretty smiles ; our reception at the 
hands of the lady of the house is cordial and not 
wanting in dignity ; she is magnificent above the 
others; her petticoat of crimson velvet and her 
corsage of sky-blue velvet are lost beneath the 
raised ornamentation of gold, while splendid 
pearls, and emeralds large as hazel-nuts, are set 
in her ear-rings. We were never before in the 



Into Morocco. 313 

mansion of a rich Jewish family, and all this un- 
known and unsuspected wealth seems to us like 
a dream, after the squalor and the stenches of 
the street. 

Notwithstanding our host's insistance, we de- 
cline to stay breakfast, but they seem so pleased 
to receive us that, not to disappoint them, we 
take a cup of tea. 

The tea is to be served in a room of the first 
story ; we ascend a steep and narrow stairway 
in mosaics, followed by all the little women in 
their attire of idols ; we pass through an upper 
gallery with decorated walls, enclosed in open- 
work relieved by gilding, and enter a drawing- 
room decorated in the style of the Alhambra, 
where we seat ourselves on the floor upon velvet 
cushions and marvellous rugs. Our spiced tea, 
too, is smoking on the ground in silver tea-pots 
and samovars of rich design. 

The windows of this drawing-room are small 
trefoils, or rosettes, of an exquisite elegance of 
form ; on the walls is the same inlaid work, the 
same carved lace work of which the Arabs pos- 
sess the inimitable secret ; as for the ceiling, it 
is an aggregation of small vaulted arches set 
with stars, in the composition of which it would 
seem as if the rarest and most difficult geo- 
metric combinations must liave been exhausted, 



314 J^nto Morocco, 

as well as the most extraordinary blending of 
colors. 

Through the stained glass of the windows the 
sunlight falls in patches of blue, yellow and red 
upon the medley of silk and gold and the bril- 
liant colors of the women's attire. From a sil- 
ver chafing dish in the middle of the room rises 
in a thin blue cloud the perfumed smoke of 
burning aloe wood. 

After we have swallowed the three indispens- 
able cups of tea, and have been served with lit- 
tle cakes, preserves of watermelon and many 
little sweets of every description, we make an 
effort to say good-bye and leave, but our hostess 
renews her invitation to breakfast with such an 
urgency of entreaty that we finally are van- 
quished and say yes. Thereupon an expression 
of unfeigned pleasure appears upon her face, 
and all the little married ladies jump for joy. 
But before taking our places at table, we 
have to visit all the apartments of the dwelling, 
of which our host seems to be pardonably 
proud. 

First we ascend to the terraces, otherwise known 
as roofs, the ordinary exercising place for the 
family. We can scarcely bring ourselves to step 
on them, so snowy white is their immaculate 
coating of Avhite-wash. They are divided into 



Into Morocco. ^15 

several plots, from which the desolate grandeur 
of the surroundings presents itself under differ- 
ent aspects. Such is the absence of regularity 
in the streets of this old city, where for centuries 
and centuries houses have been built into and 
on top of the more ancient ruins, that a part of 
these white terraces are lost beneath the dark, 
forbidding arch of an old ruinous fortress that 
was formerly erected on this spot by Mouley- 
Ismail, the Cruel. From this lofty elevation the 
eye first settles upon the Jewish quarter, with its 
airless huddle of houses, crowded up against 
each other as if they had been screwed in a gi- 
gantic compress, and emitting all sorts of stifling 
odors. Beyond is the remainder of Mequinez, 
the entire incomprehensible development of walls 
of fortress and palace, on which, by way of con- 
trast, space and breadth seem to have been 
lavished ad libitum^ and in the middle of the 
highest and the sternest of these enclosures ap- 
pears the wonderful gate through which we so 
lately made our exit from the Seraglio, the great 
mosaic-embroidered arch which was the magnifi- 
cent Sultan's entrance of honor. Still farther, 
beyond all these ramparts and ruins, glimpses 
are obtained of that country where the only law- 
givers are the brigands. " It has happened more 
than once," our host tells us, " when the 



3i6 Into Morocco. 

Sultan was absent with his army toward the 
south upon some expedition, that it has been 
necessary to close the gates of Mequinez in 
bright daylight, so bold and dangerous were the 
robber Zemmours." 

The Israelite's whole family has followed us 
up here in Indian file along the steep and narrow 
stairway, to do the honors of their airy retreat ; 
the velvet and the gold of the women's costumes 
contrast with the brilliant whitewash of the ter- 
race ; all the little married ladies are here, too. 
Especially to be noted are two little sisters-in- 
law, about ten years old, who are always togeth- 
er, arm in arm, and who are entirely quaint and 
charming, with their great, excessively painted 
eyes, which have nothing in common with chil- 
dren's eyes ; the splendid rings on their wrists 
and ankles, which were wedding gifts and which 
are to be worn by them later when they shall be 
full-grown, are now too large for their slender 
limbs and are kept in place by ribbons. In the 
case of them all, whether young or the reverse,, 
what seems to be their hair, falling from beneath 
their little caps of gold gauze, is not hair, but an 
imitation of it in silk ; two stiff, carefully combed 
plaits of black silk enframe their cheeks of waxy 
white, and two little " spit-curls," also of black 
silk, are pasted in front of their delicate ears. 



Into Morocco. 317 



Wherever their true hair may be, it is invisible, 
concealed no one knows where. 

As my eyes survey these terraces and the mel- 
ancholy horizon, in face of which these women 
are born and die, their situation flashes upon my 
mind and a feeling of horror seizes me at the 
thought of what life can be for these Jews, con- 
strained to obey the law of Moses only with fear 
and trembling and immured in their narrow 
quarter, in the midst of this mummified city, 
apart from the whole world. 

The whole house is arranged and decorated 
in the most exquisite taste, and might be taken 
for the residence of some fashionable Vizier, 
were it not for the smallness of its proportions, 
or still more, for the presence in every room, 
framed and under glass, of the Tables of the 
Law, or inscriptions in Hebrew, or the stern face 
of Moses, or some other indication of this par- 
ticular obscurity which is not Mussulman ob- 
scurity. 



* 
* * 



Our breakfast is awaiting us. It is served in a 
room of the ground floor, opening on the fine 
courtyard with its ornamentation of lace-work 
carved in stone and picked out with gold. Its 
inner walls are embellished with mosaics of sur- 



3i8 Into Morocco. 

passing fineness, representing rows of Moorish 
arches that are fantastically intertwined with ro- 
settes in a series of kaleidoscopic designs. The 
ceiling is composed of those innumerable little 
pendents, arranged in complicated, inlaced 
forms, which I can only compare to those crys- 
tallizations of hoar-frost that we see hanging 
from the trees in winter. 

As a mark of politeness toward us, the table 
is spread with a white cloth and in the Europe- 
an style ; the china is French, from Limoges, 
with decorations in gold, in the style of the 
Empire. Through what Odysseys have these 
things passed that they should turn up at last in 
Mequinez ? 

Four musicians ; two singers, a violin and a 
drum, are introduced, who seat themselves on 
the ground at our feet and entertain us with an 
unceasing succession of squeaking, doleful airs. 
Our hostess, notwithstanding her pearls and em- 
eralds, cannot be satisfied without superintend- 
ing in person the kitchen arrangements and 
bringing the dishes in to us, all which she ac- 
complishes, moreover, with perfect gracefulness 
and a distinguished manner that is natural to her. 

Twenty courses succeed each other in due 
order, which are washed down by two or three 
varieties of an extremely good little old red wine 



i „#- 




Into Morocco. 319 

that the Israelites make from grapes that grow on 
the hill-sides around Mequinez, to the great 
scandal of the Mussulmans. And while the 
music is howling and shrieking at our feet and 
the scented smoke of the wood that is burning 
before us curls around our breakfast in a bluish 
cloud, we behold, in the midst of the bright 
court, the family grouped together in their gold 
bedizened costumes, and among them the two 
little sisters-in-law, who pass and repass, arm in 
arm, their childish airs contrasting with their 
heavy trinkets and their clothes like those of 
grown women. 

When the time comes for us to take our de- 
parture, Ave do not know how to thank these 
kindly people, whom we shall never meet again, 
and to whom we would like, nevertheless, to 
offer hospitality, if, which is impossible, they 
should ever visit our country. 

When we go forth into the squalid street to 
mount our mules again, we find quite an assem- 
blage of people who have collected there in their 
curiosity to have a look at us ; the whole quarter 
is on foot, and we make our way through a dense 
crowd until, the gate of the Jews once passed, 
we again reach the solitude of the Arab city. 
The roasting two o'clock sun is beating upon the 
stillness of the ruins amid the hum of thousands 



320 Into Mo7'occo. 

of locusts. We leave the precincts of the ram- 
parts to descend to our camp. 

There the horsemen are awaiting us who 
came from Fez, bearing our gifts. Before dis- 
missing them, we wish to verify the contents of 
the boxes, lest they may have been broken into 
and robbed during the night while they were in 
transit, and at the announcement that they are to 
be opened, our muleteers form a close circle 
around us with eyes distended by curiosity ; the 
people of a small caravan, who have pitclied their 
tents beside ours while we were away, also draw 
near, attracted by the spectacle, and soon we 
have some thirty Arabs, of equivocal appearance 
and draped in majestic rags, pressing close about 
us in silent impatience to admire the presents of 
the Caliph. We open the first case ; it contains 
the green velvet saddle, richly embroidered in 
gold, which we are commissioned to transmit to 
the Governor of Algeria, together with his steed 
of dapple-gray ; its appearance in the sunlight is 
greeted with the admiring murmurs of the crowd. 

Now let us open the long box which contains 
our personal gifts. For each one of us there is 
a musket of " souss " in its red case, an old- 
fashioned arm with a barrel five feet long and 
silver-plated in its whole length. For each one 
of us there is also a great Moroccan Pacha's 



Into Morocco 321 

sword in an enameled scabbard, with a belt of 
silk and gold, the hilt of rhinoceros horn, the 
blade and guard damascened with gold. It glit- 
ters in the sunlight, and the bystanders utter 
expressions of feverish delight. A camel-driver 
is so carried away by his enthusiasm for a Caliph 
who can make such presents as to shout ; " May 
Allah grant victory to our Sultan Mouley-Has- 
san ! May Allah prolong his days, even at the 
cost of my own life!'' We conclude that we 
were imprudent in having aroused such desires 
about us. 

* 

We mount our mules again, and, preceded by 
the old Caid who is answerable for us, make our 
way up to the city, this time with the intention of 
wandering about haphazard in quest of rugs 
and arms until the sun goes down. 

The bazaar, much smaller, darker and more 
gloomy than that of Fez, is completely deserted 
when we reach it ; all the little lids to the mer- 
chants' dens along the walls are tightly closed. 
We are told that every one is at the mosque, but 
that they will very soon return ; we had, in fact, 
forgotten that it is half-past three, the hour of 
the fourth prayer of the day. 

One by one the merchants return from their 



32 2 Into Morocco. 

devotions, with measured steps, veiled in their 
transparent muslins, white like ghosts in the 
dusk of the little vaulted passageways. Abstracted 
in their dream, careless or disdainful of our pres- 
ence, they open their niches, raise the lids and 
seat themselves within, holding their chaplets be- 
tween their fingers, without condescending to look 
at us. Still we are the only buyers on hand — and 
one is tempted to ask one's self, what is the use 
of a bazaar in this necropolis ? The goods offered 
for sale are chiefly bournouses and clothing, 
leather work, and horse equipments enameled 
in gold and silver, together with those bed-cover- 
ings of outlandish design, woven by the tribes- 
women of the south by their tent-doors in the 
evening — among the Beni-M'guil or the Touaregs. 

For along time we roam among the deserted 
and funereal precincts ; always in the gloom of 
the covered streets, we pass before several im- 
mense mosques, where we catch furtive glimpes 
of rows of mysterious arches and columns. Fin- 
ally we reach the jeweler's quarter, where there 
is a little more activity. 

What queer old jewelry finds a market in Me- 
quinez ! When could the things have ever been 
new ? — There is not one which has not an air 
of extreme antiquity ; old rings for wrists or 
ankles, worn smooth by centuries of rubbing 



Into Morocco. 323 

against human flesh ; great clasps for fastening 
veils ; little old silver bottles with coral pend- 
ants, to hold the black dye with which the eyes 
are painted, with hooks to fasten them at the 
belt ; boxes to enclose Korans, carved in ara- 
besques and bearing Solomon's seal ; old neck- 
laces of gold sequins, defaced by wear on the 
necks of women long since dead ; and quantities 
of those large trefoils in hammered silver, en- 
closing a green stone, which are hung about the 
neck to avert the bad effect of the evil-eye. 
These things are all spread out on little, dirty, 
worm-eaten tables, in front of the squatting mer- 
chants, in the little dens in the old walls. 

The bazaar is near the Jewish quarter, and 
several of that race, knowing us to be here, come 
and offer us trinkets, bracelets, quaint old rings 
and emerald earrings, things which they take 
from the pockets of their black robes with fur- 
tive airs, after having cast distrustful looks 
around. 

We are also approached by the dealers in the 
fine woolen rugs and carpets of R'bat, which 
they throw upon the ground, among the dust, 
refuse and bones, to show us the rare designs 
and splendid colors of their wares. 



* * 



324 Into Morocco. 

The sun is getting low ; its rays are already 
beginning to stretch in long golden bands across 
the ruins. It is time for us to end our bargain- 
ing, which has not been conducted without some 
wrangling, and to leave the sacred city which 
we are to behold no more, and betake ourselves 
to our tents. 

Before passing the last gate of the enclosure, 
we halt in a sort of small bazaar, of the existence 
of which we were not previously aware. It is 
that of the bric-a-brac merchants, and the Lord 
on]}' knows what queer old oddities shops of this 
kind in Mequinez can display. These dealings 
are carried on near a gate which opens on the 
wilderness of the fields, at the base of the tall 
ramparts and in the shade of some old mulberry 
trees that are just now bright in their tender 
young April foliage. Ancient arms constitute 
the principal stock in trade of the dealers in this 
quarter, rusty yataghans, long Souss muskets ; 
then old leather amulets for war or for the chase, 
ridiculous powder-horns, and also musical instru- 
ments ; guitars covered with snake-skin, pipes 
and tambourines. To keep the rubbish which 
they are selling in countenance, no doubt, the 
dealers are mostly all broken-down, worn-out, 
used up old men. 

Beggars, who have selected their dwelling- 



Into Morocco. 325 

places among the crevices in the rocks by this 
entrance to the city, are attentive listeners to 
our bargaining ; a one-armed man covered with 
sores, a leprous cripple, and several men, who, 
in place of eyes, have only two bleeding cavities 
swarming with flies ; these latter are thieves 
whose eycs, as the law provides, have been 
burned out with a red-hot iron. 

No doubt the people in this bazaar are very 
poor and have great need to sell their goods, for 
they crowd around us and press us with their 
wares. We make several surprising bargains. 
As the sky grows yellow and the cold breeze of 
sunset springs up, we are still there, near the 
lonely gate, beneath the branches of the old 
trees, surrounded by some fifty wild, ragged 
forms, Berbers, Arabs and Soudanese. 

XXXIV. 

Tuesday, April 30th. 

AT tlie first bright rays of the sun we break 
camp, leaving what remains of our feasts 
to the dogs and the vultures. Quickly the holy 
city disappears behind us, shut in by the wild 
hills. 

Mountain passes, carpets of flowers. Great 
blooms of pink J^ind-weed among the bluish 



326 Into Morocco. 

aloes, in such profusion that it is as if one had 
taken great handfuls of pink ribbon and thrown 
them among the pale, ashy foliage of the aloes. 
And so it is for leagues on leagues. Then come 
belts of blue bind-weed, so blue that they resem- 
ble pools in which is reflected the beautiful deep 
coloring of the sky. 

It will be to-morrow before we turn into the 
direct Tangier road which we followed in our 
(ourney hither; to-day we are traversing a region 
still less frequented, and which is quite strange 
^o us, a very solitary region. It is growing 
warmer, the African odor is more marked among 
the fields, and there is a greater abundance of 
flowers and more of the vibrating hum of insects, 
in a deeper silence. 

We are to proceed by forced marches, about 
sixty kilometres a day ; our camping places, 
which have been discussed and fixed by us in 
connection with the Caid who is conducting us, 
have been marked off at such distances. This 
evening we are in hopes of camping on the far 
side of these lower ranges of the Atlas, at the 
opening of the great plain where winds the Sebu. 

Our manner of travelling is quite different, 
this time, from what it was before, and tlie 
country through" which we passed as if on a holi- 
day excursion, where all the horsemen of the 



Into Morocco. 327 

different tribes collected to do us honor, appears 
to us now in its true aspect, in its sullen quiet, 
with all its boundless untenanted space. With 
no disparagement toward our comrades of the 
embassy at Fez — of whom we retain the kindest 
remembrance — we prefer to return in this man- 
ner, like a brave band of Moors, avoiding the 
curiosity of passing caravans, forming a not in- 
harmonious speck in the vast solitudes where we 
are journeying, disguised as we are in our bour- 
nouses and blackened by the sun; we feel ten 
times more African, gossiping with our mule- 
teers, listening to their songs and stories, ini- 
tiated into a thousand small details of Moroccan 
life that we had never dreamed of in our cere- 
monious inward march. 

The old Caid who solicited the honor — ^and 
the profit — of bringing us back to Tangier is an 
inhabitant of Mequinc z, where he is said to pos- 
sess a harem of young white women ; he re- 
quested permission yesterday to spend the night 
at his home. He was promptly on hand at the 
camp at daylight this morning, faithful to his 
promise. To-day, however, though always erect 
in his saddle, he looks like a corpse that has been 
sun-dried, and in place of taking the head of the 
line, he follows painfully in the rear; too proud 
to own up that he is tired, spurring up his ani- 



328 Into Morocco. 

mal with a heart breaking spitefuhiess each time 
that he sees us drawing rein to wait for him. 

All day long, we meet neither village, nor 
house, nor cultivated field. At considerable 
distances from each other, there are a few douars 
of wandering bands, generally stationed away 
from the road, but whose watch-dogs, scenting 
us in spite of the distance, howl in the silence of 
the fields as we pass. Their yellowish or brown- 
ish tents are always arranged in a circle — like 
the mushrooms which they resemble so closely — 
with their cattle grazing in the middle, and there 
is in the plain, beside each douar^ two or three 
great circular spots, covered with filth and where 
no grass grows — which are the sites of former 
camps, abandoned 011 account of the herbage 
being exhausted. We are told that the tents 
are inhabited by the women only, all the able- 
bodied men having been drafted by the Pacha of 
Mequinez for his expedition against the Ze- 
mours. 

Toward noon, as we are passing a ford, we 
meet a Berber tribe on its travels, the men 
breasting the rapid stream with robes tucked up 
high above the water. According to Berber 
custom, the women wear very scanty veils, and 
some of the younger ones among them are very 
pretty. The cattle make the passage with great 



Into Morocco. 329 

lowing and bellowing, kept in order by dogs 
that seem to have their hands full. Little girls 
carry lambs in their bosoms, and from one of 
those large baskets called chouari that the mules 
carry on their backs, there looks out wondering- 
ly a little new-born foal that has been placed 
there for safe transportation, who seems to find 
his quarters comfortable. 

At last, about four o'clock, from the top of the 
last peak of this range of the Atlas, the plain of 
the Sebu, which we shall have to cross to-morrow, 
appears before us like a shining sea. In the 
fore-ground it is striped and variegated with yel- 
low, pink and violet, according to the predomin- 
ance of the different kinds of flowers that have 
never been disturbed by foot of man. Far away 
in the distance, where the horizon lies in a clear- 
ly defined circle, all these bright tints are con- 
fused and blended in an uniform blue, like that 
of the real sea. Descending a steep declivity, 
we encamp for the night in the plain, at an hour's 
march beyond the foot of the mountains, near 
the holy tomb of Sidi-Kassem and close to a 
small cluster of thatched hovels that are sup- 
posed to be under the protection of this marabout. 

That is always a delightful hour, when, the 



;^T,o Into Alorocco. 

long day's march ended and ihe camp pitched, 
we seat oil! selves voluptuously outside our tent 
on a carpet of fresh wild flowers which are 
always different, always changing. Around us 
on every side is boundless space. The air smells 
sweet, is filled with that perfume which it has in 
our country, although in less degree and more 
ephemeral, at hay-making time; our Arab clothes 
are light and easy, increasing the restful sensa- 
tion that we experience as we lie stretched out 
under the cool evening sky ; and that deep lim- 
pidity which pervades the whole scene, which is 
a feast to the eye, it seems as if we breathe that 
in also, that we receive a physical sensation of 
taste from it when we fill our ' lungs with air. 
The stability of the old Arab ground on which 
we are to repose seems infinitely pleasant after 
so many hours spent in rocking to and fro to ac- 
commodate ourselves to the short step of the 
mules ; and then we are very hungry, too, and 
are not sorry to think that the hour of cous-couss 
is approaching, nor do we look scornfully on the 
preparations that our muleteers are making for 
us yonder ; sheep and chickens roasting on the 
grass. 

Our location here is near the Beni-Hassen, 
whose territory we shall cross to-morrow with- 
out a halt, s(^ as to put the stream of the Sebu 



Into Morocco. 331 

between us and our next encampment ; the 
Zemours are not far away, too, but it is diffi- 
cult to imagine a danger near us in this delight- 
fully calm and flower-decked spot. 

The lowing herds are returning to the adjoining 
little village, driven by hooded children. We are 
quickly furnished with a supply of warm milk in 
earthen vessels, and the old chief, who is to sup- 
ply our guard for the night, comes to have a 
chat with us. After all sorts of questions and 
answers have been exchanged between us, we 
make inquiries about the three robbers who were 
captured hereabouts the day we first passed this 
way. "Ah ! " says he, " the three robbers ! . . . , 
this is the fifih or sixth day that their hands are 
m salt ! " 

XXXV. 

AVednesday Morning, May ist. 

THERE was firing all night long about our 
camp, in our very ears. It proceeded 
from our sentinels, who were greatly exercised 
and very alert. We could hear them say to each 
other : "It is a robber." — '' No, it is a jackal." 
And then they would discuss the shape of what 
they thought they had seen approaching in the 
darkness : " They were men, I tell you, but stoop- 
ing, stooping, crawling along on all fours ." 



332 Into Moiocco. 

At half-past four in the morning, with the first 
ghmpse of day, we are called, according to or- 
ders, to break camp and be off ; we want to be 
clear of the territory of the Beni-Hassem and to 
have crossed the big river before niglitfall. 

As we awake in our small canvas house — 
which is always the same, where the mats and 
the rugs are always arranged in one unvarying 
fashion — it often happens that we do not well 
remember the aspect of the country about us, 
which, on the contrary, is constantly changing ; 
which is it ? a great lifeless city, a deserted plain 
or a mountain that gives us a view of the sur- 
rounding region ? 

As I step from my tent this morning, still 
dazed with sleep, I see before me a wide expanse 
of country, a mass of pink mallows and violet- 
colored lucerne, lying beneath a black sky ; an 
unimaginable profusion of flowers in a flat, 
boundless waste, which has something to remind 
one of both the Garden of Eden and the Desert. 
It is scarcely light yet, and the thick clouds, 
which seem to touch the ground, make the vault 
of heaven darker than the earth beneath. At 
the far end of the plain, however, just where the 
clouded sky comes down to meet the earth, the 
golden sun reveals his presence by the long, 
level rays with which ho penetrates the thick 



Into Mo7'occo. 2i?>Z 

darkness in which we are enveloped; his pres- 
ence is rather feh than seen, and, for an instant, 
the contrast makes the regions which adjoin the 
luminous shafts that emanate from him, darker 
than before. The mysterious sunrise reminds 
me forcibly of those which I used to be familiar 
with on the coasts of Britanny, or in the southern 
seas during the foggy season. But while I am 
thus at a loss and undecided where I am, as I 
watch the far, pale rent in the sky, great beasts 
pass in single file between me and the sun ; slow- 
moving, swaying beasts, whose long legs project 
upon the plain shadows that seem to havj no 
end : the caravan for Africa. Only then do I 
fully grasp again the idea of my situation, whic'i 
had three-fourths escaped me. 

The clouds are absorbed, disappear, no one 
can say where. The blue appears again in all 
quarters simultaneously, then becomes uniform 
over all the dome of heaven. 

For seven hours we journey without a halt 
over the broad plain, in a magnificent desert of 
daisies, marigolds, lucerne and mallows, now and 
then meeting trains of camels or heavily loaded 
mules ; all the traffic coming and going between 
Tangier and Fez — between Europe and the Sou- 
dan. Finally we weary of so many flowers, aU 
of the same kind and seen through half-closed 



334 /?//<? Moi'occo. 

eyes, for the rocking motion of our mules and 
the fierce heat of the sun together induce a state 
of semi-somnolence. 

About two o'clock, we come to a halt in a spot 
of which this picture remains fixed upon my 
memory ; the same limitless plain, decked with 
flowers as was never any garden, and apart, by 
himself, the old Caid, completely done up, on his 
knees in prayer. It is a belt of white daisies, in- 
terspersed with red poppies ; the old man kneels 
at the far end, with his complexion of the color 
of clay, his long white beard like moss, clothed 
in the bright colors of the daisies and poppies 
around him, his pink caftan visible beneath his 
white veils ; his white horse with the red sad- 
dle grazes beside him, his head buried to the 
ears in the long grass ; and himself, half buried 
among these pink and white flowers, in the midst 
of the immense flowery plain that stretches, an 
infinite desert, beneath the deep blue of the sum- 
mer sky ; prostrate upon the ground where he 
will soon find a resting-place, and beseeching the 
mercy of Allah with that fervor of prayer that is 
inspired by the knowledge that death is not far off. 

We passed the Sebu at four o'clock, and en- 
camped near a village of the Beni-Malek, on the 
north bank of the stream. 



Into Moi'occo. 335 



XXXVI. 



Thursday, May 2nd. 

NEW recruits are added to our little band : 
some Arabs that we met by the way, travel- 
ling unprotected, who requested permission to 
join us from fear of robbers. We have also with 
us two of those persons called Rakkas, members of 
an important corporation at Fez under the com- 
mand of an Amin, whose business it is to carry- 
letters across Morocco, travelling night and day 
when necessary, according to the price paid them, 
and making up for it afterward by a week's 
sleep. 

Four hours of the cool morning are spent in 
traversing these sandy wastes, carpeted with 
ferns and small rare flowers ; a region with 
which we had already formed acquaintance, but 
which seems strange to us — more forbidding, 
nore melancholy, more extensive, too — now 
that we have to pass through it without our 
noisy ambassadorial escort, who were constantly 
firing their guns in the air. The air, no longer 
defiled by the smoke of powder nor disturbed by 
the thunder of the fantasias, is surprisingly 
calm, pure, sweet and vivifying. The light, too, 



^^6 Into Morocco. 

is so fine ! Beyond the grand lines of the plain, 
the mountains which we are to enter to-morrow 
are drawn against the bright void of the sky as 
if with firm, clean-cut strokes of the pencil in 
colors of startling intensity. Now and then a 
stork, motionless on his stilts, watches us as we 
pass, or sails above us in the air, his great black 
and white, fan-like wings flapping over our heads. 
And that is all the life there is in this lonely 
land, where the sense of living is still so keen. 

* * 

Toward noon, among hills that are violet with 
lavender, the penetrating odor of which is intensi- 
fied by the heat of the sun, we perceive a shal- 
low ravine where there chances to be a tree, an 
actual tree of some size, an old wild fig-tree, 
knotted and twisted like an Indian banyan. It 
is a thing so seldom met with in this naked 
country, where there is no other shade than the 
fugitive clouds, and offers such strong temptation, 
that we dismount and make our way down into 
the hollow for our noonday halt. The advan- 
tages of the spot have already been discerned by 
a dozen bulls who have taken up their quarters 
there, keeping close together for the sake of 
company and well concealed amid the dense 
foliage, seemingly contented in their cool, moist 



Into Morocco. 337 

retreat, while everything outside is baking and 
broiling. They do not contest the point, how- 
ever, but give way to us and retire in affright, 
and we take possession as masters of the little 
oasis. 

Judging from its great size and the fantastic 
shapes into which its branches are twisted, this 
fig tree must be centuries old. A little stream 
runs murmuring over black pebbles at its roots, 
between banks covered with cresses, blue myo- 
sitis, and all those water-plants that are to be 
seen in our French brooks. Behind the dense 
mass of foliage, an overhanging rock forms an 
arched entrance to a grotto, a second small room, 
more sheltered and retired, carpeted with fine 
moss and from which trickles the outlet of a 
spring. As we enter, we experience a delicious 
sensation of coolness and shade, after the op- 
pressiveness of the burning light out on the hiils 
of lavender. We stretch ourselves out lazily 
among the roots of the tree, as if in easy chairs, 
our bare feet dangling in the water of the brook. 
There is nothing of Africa, nothing foreign in our 
surroundings ; we seem to be in some wild nook 
of France, a France of other days, in the full 
splendor of June, in the cloudless noontide. The 
living things, too, that have never been abused 
by man, are not afraid of us ; the water turtles 



338 Into Mofocco. 

come shyly up in their black shells to feed among 
the rushes on the crumbs of our bread, and the 
little green tree-frogs hop over us and allow us 
to catch and stroke them. 

XXXVII. 

Saturday, May 3d. 

TO-MORROW we shall be in Tangier the 
White, the extremity of Europe, and shall 
renew our acquaintance with the men and things 
of the present century. 

This penultimate day of our journey is a long 
and harassing one, and the sun grows hotter. 
Our old Caid, who is breaking down under the 
fasts of the Ramadan, fails to recognize the road. 
Our muleteers, who have also given up food, 
are slower and sleepier than usual. They fall 
behind, and our little column stretches out in a 
manner that causes us great anxiety ; it is now 
strung out over two or three kilometres of hot, 
deserted road. Sometimes our mules are quite 
lost to sight, together with the muleteers, who 
are following us with our baggage and the Sul- 
tan's gifts ; those famous, long wished-for gifts ; 
then, ourselves a little under the influence of the 
Ramadan and lacking courage to turn and re- 
trace our steps in the broiling heat, we throw 



Into Morocco. 339 

ourselves down on the ground to wait for them 
to come up, anywhere, but inevitably in the sun, 
since there is nowhere any shade : anywhere, on 
the old, baked, burning Arab ground, covering 
our heads with our white cowls as shepherds do 
when they compose themselves for their siesta. 

About three o'clock we have quite lost our 
way among the wastes of ferns, lentiscus and 
lavender. There is not a sign of our tents and 
baggage, which must have taken another road. 
Our old Caid, whom we would be justified in be- 
ing very angry with, only excites our pity in the 
state to which his fatigue has reduced him. 

But when we have once found our road and 
night comes on, the last one of our encampments 
seemed designed expressly to increase our regret 
that this is to be the end of our wandering life 
in this primitive land of flowers. In a spot that 
has no name, on the slope of a lofty hill and 
facing a peaceful landscape, it is a little circular 
plateau, or small terrace, surrounded by a dense 
growth of dwarf palms, like a garden plot within 
a hedge. Allah, for our sake, has laid upon this 
plateau a carpet of white, blue and pink, of virgin 
freshness, whereon no man has ever planted his 
foot : daisies, mallows and gentians, so close set 



340 Into Moj'occo. 

that the plain seems to be embroidered with 
them ; the short, thin stalks, growing from a 
sandy soil, make a soft bed and invite us to re- 
pose. The pure air is loaded with sweet, health- 
giving odors. There is, a thing seldom met 
with, an olive grove crowning the height above 
us. A network of small fleecy clouds floats like a 
veil in the blue sky, which is beginning to pale, 
to change to a clear green tint. There is no 
sign of man to be seen in any direction ; it is 
the sweetest, the most peaceful nook that we 
have met as yet in the course of our journey, 
and all these delights are our's alone, the floAvers, 
the music of the insects, the resplendency of the 
colors and of the atmosphere. The peace of 
Eden rules over this May evening on this wild 
plateau ; it is what the vernal evenings must 
have been in prehistoric times, before man in- 
f?Jicted ugliness upon the earth. 



Into Morocco. 341 



XXXVIII. 



Sunday, May 4th. 

AFTER another long day's march under a 
burning sun, toward evening we behold 
Tangier the White rising before us ; above it, 
the blue line of the Mediterranean, and higher 
still, the vaporous, indented outline which we 
know to be the coast of Europe. 

As we pass among the European villas of the 
suburbs, the first impression wliich we experi 
ence is one of embarrassment, almost of surprise, 
and our embarrassment is changed to consterna- 
tion when, as we enter the garden of the hotel 
in our bournouses, with our black faces and 
bare legs, with all our bales and packages, at- 
tended by our muleteers and the rag-tag of no- 
madic Arabs, we fall plump into a bevy of young 
English misses getting ready to play lawn-tennis. 

Really, Tangier appears to us to be the acme 
of civilization — of modern refinement. A hotel 
where we can eat without having to show a letter 
of 7nouna with the Sultan's signature ; black- 
coated, white-tied waiters at the table d'hote to 
bring us our cous-couss, wearing little scanty 
caftans, stopping in front at the waist, as if the 



342 Into Morocco. 

price of cloth was too high, and floating in two 
ridiculous tails down behind the back, like the 
divided wings of a June beetle. Things ugly 
and convenient. The city everywhere open to 
us, and safe to travel about in ; no more need 
for a guard when we want to walk in the streets, 
no necessity for guarding one's person ; to sum 
up, we are forced to admit that material exist- 
ence is vastly simplified, is more comfortable, 
and is made easy to all with very little money. 
In our first moments of relaxation, we are con- 
scious how oppressive, notwithstanding its charm, 
was the plunge which we have just taken into 
former times. 

Our preferences and regrets, however, are still 
for the land whose gate has just closed be- 
hind us. For ourselves, it is too late; assuredly 
we could never be acclimated there, but the life 
of those who were born there seems to us less 
wretched and less perverted than ours. Person- 
ally, I confess that I would rather be the most 
holy Caliph than president of the most parlia- 
mentary, most literary, most industrious, of re- 
publics. The lowest of camel-drivers, even, who, 
his courses in the desert ended, lies down and 
dies in the bright sunlight some fine day, extend- 
ing his confiding hands in prayer to Allah, seems 
to me to have had by far the better part than the 



Into Morocco. 343 

laDorer in the great European workshop, be he 
diplomat or be he stoker, who ends his martyr- 
dom of toil and covetousness in bl ispheming 
upon his bed. 

Rest, then, dark Moghreb, many years yet, 
immured, impenetrable to the things that are 
new. Turn thy back on Europe and strengthen 
thyself in holding to the things that are past. 
Let thy sleep be the sleep of centuries, and so 
continue thy ancient dream. So that at least 
there may be one land where man may pray. 

And may Allah preserve to the Sultan his un- 
subdued territories and his waste places carpeted 
with flowers, his deserts of asphodel and iris, 
there in free space to exercise the agility of his 
horsemen and the sinews of steel of his horses, 
there to do battle as in old times the paladins, 
and gather in his harvests of rebel heads. May 
Allah preserve to the Arab race its mystic dreams, 
its immutability, scornful of all things, and its 
gray rags ! May he preserve to the Bedouin 
pipes their mournful tones which make us shiver; 
to the old mosques their inviolable mystery ; 
and their shroud of whitewash to the ruins. 

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"Abounds in warmth and color, and will not disap^ 
point those who take it up." — Boston Times. 

"A magnificent love story of life in Africa, written by 
a great traveler and author." — New Orleans Picayune. 

" Oriental sumptuousness and brilliancy of color." — 
Chicago News. 

" A powerful tale of life in Senegambia." — Philadel- 
phia Press. 

Send for complete catalogue. 

RAND, McNALLY & CO. 

PUBLISHERS. 

CHICAGO AND NEW YORK. 







ISSUED IN THE RIAL TO SERIES. 

THE ABBEWNSTANTIN 

BY LUDOVIC HALEVY. 

With 36 beautiful half-tone engravings from the original illustra- 
tions by Mme. Madeltae Lemaire. 
Double Number, in Paper Cover, $1.00 ; Half Morocco, $2.00. 

For Sale at all Booksellers' and News Stands. 

This exquisitely beautiful story has won its way into the hearts 
of many people in many lands, and so long as unselfish love, 
modest nobihty, and himible devotion to duty are regarded as 
admirable ; so long as manly men and womanly women are 
regarded as lovable,— so long wUl this story be admired and 
loved. To the perfect touch of the author, Mme. Lemaire has 
added the interpretation of a sympathetic artist of fine taste and 
skill; and the book, as it now appears, embellished with her 
beautiful designs, is one of the finest things in literature of this 
class. 

Send for complete catalogue. 

RAND, McNALLY & CO. 

CHICAGO AND NEW YORK. 



ISSUED IN THE RIALTO SERIES. 



In Love's Domains. 

.A. TK,ILOC3-"2". 

By MARAH ELLIS RYAN. 



PRICE 50 CENTS. 

For Sale by all Booksellers and at all 
News Stands. 



PRESS NOTICES. 

" The poet's story is dreamy and fiill of fancy. The profess- 
or's story is grim and rugged. The Bohemian tells the chief 
story of the book. He has views more generally entertained in 
secret than in pubUc. It is an entertaining book, and by no 
means an improfltable one."— ^os^oti Times. 

" There are imagination and poetical expression in the stories, 
and readers wiLl find them interesting."— iVeiw York Sun. 

" AU three are prettUy written stories, very unlike each other, 
and the characters are very tenderly and lovingly defined."— 
Chicago Times. 

"The longest story, 'Galeed,' is a strong, nervous story, 
covering a wide range, and dealing in a masterly way with some 
intricate questions of what might be termed amatory psychology. 
The shorter stories are in a somewhat different vein, but aU are 
weU told and readable." — San Francisco Chronicle. 

" An imusually clever piece of y^or^.''''— Charleston News. 

"Marah ElUs Ryan has a good descriptive style, an acute 
sense of the dramatic in plot and incident, and a mastery of 
English that is comprehensive and intelhgent."— CMcogro Graphic, 



Send for CJomplete Catalogue. 

RAND, McNALLT & CO., 

PUBLISHERS, 

CMcago and New York. 



AN ENTIRELY NEW ILLUSTRATED GUIDE. 



f{ U/eel^ \j) f^^\JJ Yor\[ 



BY 

ERNEST INGERSOLL. 



328 Pages. Profusely Illustrated, Maps, Plans, etc. Flexible 
Cloth, $1.00; Paper, 50 Cents. 



PRESS NOTICES. 

This guide, printed ia a neat form and with clear type, Is excellent, and 
is written by a gentleman who knows about New Yoi'k, all the ins and outs, 
and the nooks and corners thei'eof.— jVew; York Times. 

This is a manual of inf orznation about the City of New York. A pleasing 
feature of the book is nineteen full-page illustrations of points of interest in 
and about the city, which are reproduced by the half-tone process. There 
are also many other cuts and engravings. Altogether the book presents a 
very pleasing appearance, and in general make-up is superior to the majority 
of so-called "hand-books '' of the metropolis —Photo- American Review. 

One need not fear to make the assertion that it contains much matter 
new and interesting to even the New Yorker whose boast is that he "knows 
the town." Almost every imaginable subject from the ordinary points of 
resort, hotels, restaurants, theatres, business districts, courts, and pubhc 
offices to the proper " tip " for a waiter is concisely set forth. — Newark Daily 
Advertiser. 

Will prove an admirable aid to the sight-seer.— iVet« Haven Daily News. 

CONTENTS. 

1— General Facts as to New York City. 2 — The Arrival in Nev\^ York. 
3— Getting About tiie City. 4— Theatres, the Opera, and other Amusements. 
5— Racing and Athletic Sports. 6— Suggestions as to Shopping. 7— The 
City's Parks and Squares. 8— The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the 
Egyptian Obehsk. 9— A Tour of the City. 10— The Rivers and Harbor. 
11— A Ramble at Night. 12— Sunday and Religious Work in New York. 13— 
Educational Institutions. 14— Art and Architecture. 15 -Clubs and Societies. 
IG— Military Affau^s. 17 — Hospitals, Dispensaries, and Nurses. 18— Metro- 
politan Benevolence. 19— The Markets of the City. 20— Brooklyn. 21— 
Seaside Resorts. 

LIST OF FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS. 

The City Hall and Printing House Square. The Grand Central Depot. 
The Grand Union Hotel. The Harlem Bridges. The Madison Square Garden. 
Base BaU Grounds, 155th Street and 8th Avenue. The A. T. Stewart Retail 
Store. In Central Park. The East Drive— Central Park. Junction of Broad- 
way and 5th Avenue The Produce Exchange. The New York Cotton 
Exchange. Junction of Broadway and Park Row. Union Square. A Sound 
Steamer. A Yacht Race. Fifth Avenue, Looking North from 51st Street. 
The Brooklyn Bridge. Manhattan Beach. 



FOR SALE BY ALL BOOKSELLERS. 



RAND, McNALLY & CO., PUBLISHERS, 

CHICAGO AND NEW YORK. 



A CAN CONTAINING, SUFFICIENT FOR 
35 TO 40 CUPS Of 

Van Houten's 
Cocoa 

Prepaid, to all who will mention Uiis publication and send 2S Cents loith 
titeir names and addresses to 



VAN HOUTEN & ZOON, 



106 Reade St., New York; or, 
45 Wabash Ave., Chicago. 



The Standard Cocoa of the World. 




" Best and Goes Farthest." 
" Once tried, Used always." 



Perfectly Pur©. 

Easily Digested. 

Made Instantly. 

A Delicious Substitute 

for Tea and Coffee, 
and Better for the 

Stomach and Nerves. 
Cheaper and More 

Satisfying. 

There are cocoas ami cocoas, hxxX. pure and easily digestible cocoa in powder 
was invented aind. patentedby C. J. Van Houten in Holland, tha process hems stiW 
a secret of the firm. Travel where you will in Europe, you are sure to find Van 
Houten's Cocoa, and in America it is acquiring a national reputation and rapidly 
increasing sale. A comparison will quickly prove the great superiority of Van 
Houten's Cocoa. Take no substitute. Sold in one-eighth, one-quarter, one-half, 
and one pound cans. Prepared only by the inventors. Van Houten & Zoon 
Weesp, Holland. d q ' 



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